


tutti i tuoi baci per me saranno sempre pochi

by valleyofthewind



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Family Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Meet-Ugly, Merpeople, Mutual Pining, Summer Love, clichés happen because im a hopeless fuckening romantic, minghao is a merperson who hates humans, mingyu is a fisherman's son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 05:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15942323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valleyofthewind/pseuds/valleyofthewind
Summary: minghao has been stuck on the island of naxos, greece, for about a week, whereas mingyu has been stuck on the island of naxos, greece, for the entire 20 years of his life. they both reckon they're in for the most boring summers of their entire lives. that is, until a balmy evening in june, where their two completely different lives collide in a less-than-pretty way.





	tutti i tuoi baci per me saranno sempre pochi

**Author's Note:**

> i claimed prompt 51 ("mingyu is a fisherman, and minghao is a shy merman who has a secret crush on mingyu and often filled his boat with fish when he's not looking"), but i realise now that i basically took that and subconsciously changed it to hell and back and this is the product... whoops

 

 

 

_June_

There are not that many interesting things to be said about the place Mingyu lives in.

The area of the island of Naxos, located in the heart of the Aegean Sea, reaches the grand total of 429.785 km2, making it the 10th largest island to area in Greece. The highest elevation is around 1003 metres, and its highest peak is Mt. Zeus – also the highest peak in the Cyclades – and the island’s coordinates are 37° 3′ 0″ N, 25° 29′ 0″ E. The island is famous for its rich source of emery and its agriculture (consisting mainly of cheese and potatoes).

Walking from the north to the south coast of the island would take approximately eleven hours and 32 minutes; whereas taking a car would take less than two hours. From the west coast to the east coast, barely less than an hour. So, based on this knowledge, you can most likely understand that Naxos is hardly the size of Russia. But it is big enough for some things. With a population of around 18 000, there are hundreds and thousands of interactions constantly happening at the same time. For instance, two completely different interactions, both happening in the city of Naxos on the island of Naxos, a warm summer’s evening in June.

And that’s what the real story starts with. Everything before this was shit taken from Wikipedia and Google Maps. 

“This cat food brand is called _Pussi,_ ” Hansol says, snorting.

“Stop being an idiot,” Mingyu says. Since it’s almost closing time for their local supermarket, there’s hardly any bread left apart from some bags of white, imported loaves where the slices are already sliced. His dad would kill him if he got something this American. If Mingyu remembers correctly, this was his dad’s reaction the first and subsequently the last time he bought something like it: _“Huh? What_ is _this? Where do you think we are, California? Not even a duck can eat this and enjoy it."_ And so he decides that he’ll promise his dad to get up early tomorrow and get a fresh loaf of bread from Velonis Bakery.

“It seriously says _‘Pussi’_ ,” Hansol is saying, and Mingyu’s eye twitches at how loud he’s being in this very much public store. “Their slogan is ‘ _As Good As It Looks’.”_

Mingyu turns around and walks over to where Hansol is standing, examining the varied selection of cat food. Hansol, still grinning, points at the can with the words _As Good As It Looks_ written neatly under an image of a cat and, sure enough, the word  _Pussi_ in a different font and slightly bigger size. “Look,” he says, and Mingyu merely rolls his eyes in response. This is why he never, ever goes grocery shopping with Hansol. Who the hell would even find something like that, if not Hansol? “Admit it’s _funny_.” 

“Hansol,” Mingyu says, turning away from Hansol’s now pouting face to walk down the aisle, “it’s only funny if you’re like, 12. How old are you now? 15?”

Hansol grumbles something about _You’re so boring_ , and _old geezer_ , and Mingyu blatantly pretends to not hear him, humming to himself happily. After taking a picture of the can of _Pussi_ cat food, Hansol reluctantly follows Mingyu down the aisle. They walk side by side, Hansol practically skipping in comparison to Mingyu’s slow, steady steps. It’s at times like this when he feels like the last ounces of energy inside of him is being eaten alive. When was the last time _he_ was full of such childish zeal? Poking his arm, Hansol says, “Gyu?”

“Mhm?” Mingyu says, heading straight towards the till before Hansol can start loading snacks and energy drinks into the basket.

“Can you buy me some alcohol for this party?” Hansol says. Then, he corrects himself hurriedly: “Can you _please_ buy me some alcohol for this party? It’s just, it’s just that, I, uh, kind of, I kind of promised someone I would get some, and I don’t really want to die of methanol poisoning, so it would be cool if it was like, obtained legally…” he trails off, flattening the cowlick at the back of his head. 

Mingyu sighs, greeting the cashier with a quick, polite Good evening!, Hansol doing the same, before loading the groceries onto the conveyor belt. As the cashier – a middle aged man with square-frame glasses and a receding hairline – scans the items at his own pace, Mingyu lowers his voice and tries to knock some sense into Hansol. “Hansol, I’ll obviously buy you alcohol for–” and he air-quotes– “‘some party’, if you really–” and again– “‘need’ it, but like, will you ever learn about actions and consequences? If you promise someone to do something, you _will_ have to do it. Methanol poisoning _or_ lack thereof.” Hansol nods, not listening to any brotherly wisdom he just shared. “Someday, I’m gonna be miles away you. What are you going to do then? I can hardly send you a couple of bottles of Smirnoff in the post.”

Hansol replies, “Ask Chan to buy it for me,” and Mingyu shoots him a glare. 

The cashier flippantly tells him the grand total, Mingyu pays with his card, says his goodbyes to the man, packs the groceries into his tote bag, and then says to Hansol, as they’re leaving the shop, “Besides, alcohol is expensive as hell. Whatever I pay for it, you’re repaying me double. Ten euros to 20.”

Hansol stops dead on the pavement outside of the supermarket. “What the _fuck?_ No way. I don’t even have a _job.”_

Mingyu shrugs and continues walking. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before agreeing to buy alcohol for some party.”

Hansol groans, running after him reluctantly, eyebrows knitted in a way that doesn’t fit the rest of his bouncy way of walking and his flower-print shorts. “You’re such a pain in the ass. Do you really want me to buy something illegally and go blind and die?”

“Hansol, honestly,” Mingyu says, “ _pnigese se mia koutalia nero._ ” (Literal translation: “You drown yourself in a teaspoon of water.” As in: “You’re _k_ _illing_ me with your melodramaticism.”) “Grow up.”

“ _Mingyuuuuunggfgbn_ ,” Hansol groans, frustrated in the way that only younger siblings are when they’re pissed at their elder siblings. “What am I supposed to do? Can you stop being such a _father_?”

“Can you stop being such a child?” Mingyu snaps.

“I’ll bribe you,” Hansol says, as he slides into Phase Four of Hansol Not Getting What He Wants (Phase One, Two and Three being disbelief, anger and dramatism): bribing. “What do you want? I’ll fill in for you with helping Dad on the weekends. I’ll do your set of chores. On the weekends. _Please._ ”

“Why the desperation? Who’d you promise to get the alcohol for? Elizabeth the II?”

Hansol mumbles, “That doesn’t matter.”

Although Hansol’s offers seem tempting, he won’t fall for them. Or, he forces himself to not fall for them. “I can do my own chores.”

The walk to their local supermarket is only a fifteen minute one. Five if you jog. Something Mingyu is often very thankful for, especially in moments like this. They walk along in silence, and Hansol looks like he’s bursting to say something. Since it’s early June, it’s warm outside despite being past 10 p.m., and they’re both wearing flip flops, and for a few moments the only sounds the two of them collectively produce is the flip, flop of the flip flops striking the ground and coming up again and Mingyu starting to hum to himself again. For some reason, he can’t get ABBA’s S.O.S. off his head. It’s kind of haunting him. They continue walking, and from where they are on the side of the road, Mingyu turns to look at the Aegean sea, completely black under the night sky.

And then, as predicted, Hansol enters Phase Five: blackmailing. “I’ll tell Dad that you hate working on the boat.”

“He already knows that.” Mingyu pauses. “I’ll tell Dad you stole his cigarettes.”

“ _I’ll_ tell Dad _you_ –”

“Go ahead – tell him.” 

“I don’t even finish the s–” 

“Tell him whatever for all I care, but it’s not going to get you any more alcohol–”

“ _Forget_ the _alcohol,_ this is about you _always_ –”

“Forget the alcohol? Great, then we can wrap up this discu–”

“We’re not wrapping up _anything–”_

“Hansol,” Mingyu says, rolling his eyes until they fall out of his skull and hit the concrete. “You said, ‘Forget the alcohol’. _One second ago_.” Sometimes, the two of them can be the best of friends, and put all their differences aside, and take the piss out of each other jokingly, and play cards and laugh together and Mingyu can help Hansol with his homework, but at the same time, Hansol remains to be the death of him. Mostly in dire times like this, but also in everyday life. Like, how he never properly does the dishes, never once picks up the vacuum cleaner, never, ever helps out with food apart from occasionally bringing home Chinese takeout.

Now, Mingyu reckons he’ll soon be on Phase Seven – the final stage. (Sometimes, when he’s very desperate, Hansol will jump into the rare Phase Eight: begging. But, his ego is usually too inflated, and his pride is too big for this to be a thing, so it has only ever happened once in the history of their brotherhood, and Mingyu doesn’t think it’ll happen again anytime soon.) A cheap attempt at reverse psychology.

“Fine,” Hansol says. He crosses his arms and purposefully turns his head to face the houses lining the other side of the road. “I don’t need you, anyway. I’ll just get it from someone else. 

“Fine,” Mingyu says, shrugging. “Be my guest.”

“ _Fine,_ ” Hansol says. “Then it’s settled.”

“Mhm,” Mingyu says, as they make a last turn off the main street facing the sea, onto a smaller path and walk up to their house’s front door. The only window on street level is open, and when Mingyu is unlocking the door, he can peek in slightly and see his dad sitting by the kitchen table, smoking. Mingyu winces at this sight, because he knows it stains the supposedly white walls even more, and he’s always hated the suetry yellow colour it brings.

Upon arriving inside, Mingyu calls out, “We’re back,” and their dad replies with a, “Took you long enough,” accompanied with a yawn. 

“Mingyu’s fault,” Hansol says, taking his shoes off and walking into the kitchen, located right to the side of the front door. They don’t really have a hallway. The front door just leads straight into the living room, which is also their dad’s bedroom, and the kitchen is only really a small side room to it.

“Sure, sure,” says their dad, stubbing the cigarette into the ashtray. He knows Mingyu hates when he smokes when they’re home. Especially in the kitchen. But, at least he left the window open, so they won’t be asphyxiated by the smell of cigarettes. Mingyu despises the fact that Hansol seems to have picked up smoking at parties. And the thing is that he also knows he can’t dictate over either his dad or his brother’s life, but he really, really hates it. “Get everything?” 

“Yeah,” Mingyu says, placing the tote bag on the kitchen table as Hansol takes a seat, making no effort whatsoever in helping Mingyu put the groceries in the fridge or cabinet. “Apart from bread.” He sees his dad frown, about to say something, when he adds, “I’ll go out tomorrow morning and buy some at Velonis’. It’ll be nicer freshly baked.”

“As long as you _actually_ go out,” their dad says. But it seems he trusts Mingyu to do it. If it was Hansol saying this, he would’ve just laughed in his face. Not in a mean way. It’s just that Hansol wouldn’t do it, and he would know it himself, too. “Did you get grapes?”

“Yes.”

“With seeds?”

Mingyu nods.

His dad nods in return. “Good. They’re the best ones.”

“But the seeds are a pain in the ass,” says Hansol. “I always accidentally eat them.”

 “Pain in the ass this, pain in the ass that,” his dad says. “If spitting out seeds from grapes is the most painful thing you can think of, I don’t know what to say to you.” 

“I was joking,” Hansol says.

 Their dad smiles. “I know.”

“Gyu used to tell me that fruits would grow in my stomach if I ate the seeds. Remember that, _Mingyu_?”

Mingyu shrugs. “You’re gullible. What can I say?”

“I didn’t eat strawberries until I was nine.” Hansol leans back in his chair, looking back to their dad. “Why didn’t _you_ tell me the truth, hm?”

“What?” their dad says. He’s still grinning, and his eye crinkles stand prominently out of his face like thin, thin, threads. “It was funny. I knew you’d figure out, eventually.”

At the same time as this very interaction is happening in a small house with two floors and blue window shutters and ugly walls and creaky, old floorboards and one flight of stairs, a large bookshelf and no TV and a dad with his two sons sitting at the kitchen table, eating newly-washed grapes and spitting out the seeds into the bowl Mingyu has just placed on the table – Xu Minghao is by the beach area on the other side of Naxos port, trying to not get killed.

It sounds more dramatic than it really is, but he is, in fact, _essentially_ trying to not get killed.  

Before we get into that though – back to the family sitting at the small IKEA table named something like _Björk_ or _Träbord_ which none of them can pronounce properly. Mingyu’s dad always paints their furniture white to make everything look much cleaner and bigger. Their kitchen table is no exception. When they bought the house, the floors were a juxtaposition of brown, orange and yellow – a big thank you to whoever designed that shit in the 70s – and his dad had gone straight to the shops to get the white paint. However, the walls of the kitchen are a pale _yellow._ It clashes. In such an ugly way. It’s not difficult to understand how and why this drives Mingyu mad.

Another thing that drives him up the wall is that whenever Mingyu goes out grocery shopping like this, late at night because his dad forgot to do it in the day, he also always, always forgets to tell Mingyu to get something specific he really, for whatever reason, needs. _Now!, Mingyu, Now!, pronto! Vamos!_ “Mingyu,” his dad starts, because they’ve already finished eating the grapes and Mingyu is already standing up to throw the seeds out of the window, into the only bush in front of their house. “My mind isn’t really with me, you know? It’s somewhere else.”

“Sounds serious,” says Mingyu. 

“I _completely_ forgot about the milk,” his dad says. “Three packets. Red.”

“I can get that tomorrow morning.”

“No, no, it’ll be better to do it now.”

“Well, why didn’t you just call me?”

“Because I only remembered _now_. I’m old, Mingyu. Your uncle Carolos and his friends are coming over for breakfast, remember?–” Mingyu can’t remember, obviously, as he’s never been told about this– “Everything needs to be ready by nine.” His dad refers to every person over 50 in Naxos as ‘their uncle’, so Mingyu and Hansol have no idea if he’s actually their uncle, their dad’s friend, or just one of his fisherman colleagues. Or just some random guy he met on the street.

Mingyu and Hansol share a look. Then, Mingyu sighs and looks at his watch. It’s quarter past 10 now, so if he were to walk quickly he would be there before the supermarket’s closing time at 10.30. “Hansol, you want to come with me?”

Hansol shrugs.

Their dad says, “It’ll be quicker if you go alone. Sol, you can help me with fixing the windows.”

The windows on the second floor are broken. It’s okay for now, when it’s warm outside during the nights and hot during the days, but they’ll have to get them professionally repaired if they want to survive the winter. His dad’s stubborn. He says he can fix them himself without paying a cent over ten euros.

Neither Hansol nor Mingyu think the DIY-window situation is a good idea, but their dad keeps insisting on it, so all they do is slide each other another quick glance before Hansol says, “Okay, Dad,” and Mingyu nods in silence. “Let’s get to it.”

“Three milk, Mingyu,” his dad says. “ _Red._ Not that blue, fat-free bullshit. Okay?”

“Mhm. I’ll be right back.”

 “Good, because it would be a shame if you died,” his dad jokes, as he often does. “You’re so broad and tall. Who would want to clean up all that blood?”

It’s the same cashier as it was when he was here a quarter of an hour ago. “Good evening,” Mingyu greets, loading up the packets of milk onto the conveyor belt, and the man says it back to him, bored of seeing Mingyu and of his job and his life. And, just because Mingyu’s feeling exceptionally nice in this moment he asks, as he’s paying: “Is the liquor store open?”

The man gives him a strange look. “You can get alcohol here, kid.”

“Oh, right,” Mingyu says. He looks at his watch. The shop is supposed to be closing in exactly six minutes. “Then I’ll just go grab something really quickly…” He’s being the worst, most annoying customer to have ever existed in the history of customers, and the worst part of it all is that he’s completely cognizant of this.

“Fine.” The cashier lets out a deep sigh. “Hurry.” Then he calls after Mingyu walking to the liquor section. “And I want to see your ID!”

Mingyu walks out of the supermarket with three packets of red milk in his tote bag and a plastic bag with two bottles of vodka scrambling against each other. This is him, trying to be a good son as well as a good brother. He thinks about this – about being basically a co-parent to his dad, while simultaneously having to be a son and a best friend to his brother; how exhausting it is to keep up the different facades – as he’s walking home. And when he reaches the part of the road where you can see the sea below and in front of you, everywhere you look, he stops for a few minutes to stare at the moon’s reflection on the coal-black water.

He can’t really see the stars properly. That’s the streetlight above him’s fault.

And that’s when he hears this: a bloodcurdling scream coming from just below where he’s standing. And that is the moment _everything_ changes. But he doesn’t know that quite yet. Right now, all Mingyu knows is that he’s heard a scream, and that he probably should run down the staircase by the side of the road that leads down to a slim beach by the sea. He knows that he should, as a respectable member of society, not ignore this even though he _desperately_ wants to ignore a bloodcurdling scream at 10.30 p.m. And despite wanting to walk home, whistling as if he never heard anything, he should probably find out what happened. Anxiously digging his phone out of his pocket and clutching it in his hand, he starts jogging to the staircase as the Smirnoff bottles clink together vigorously in the supermarket’s plastic bag.

 

 

 

Being a merperson is nothing like you’ve ever read in a story of ancient folklore or watched in _Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch._ Perhaps you watched _Little Mermaid_ growing up, wishing to be Ariel or Eric or Ursula or the crab played by Samuel E. Wright, and you saw Ariel’s despair and love and you maybe thought, _God, I_ wish _I could be that mermaid slash_   _human prince slash sea witch slash crab._ But whatever you _wanted_ about being in that film is not the reality.

Being a merperson in modern day times is many things, but mostly this: duties that humans can’t carry out that are forced on merpeople to do. Like, for example, cleaning trash humans leave in oceans and seas – what every single one of Minghao’s Sundays are spent doing; _thank you_ ,littering fucking dickhead fucking assholes – and curing endangered fish species of bacteria and viruses and saving fucking piece of shit humans from drowning after they jump off cliffs, piss drunk. Thanks to the previously mentioned occurrence happening way too often, the official merpeople council decided on a new duty: drunk watch.

Drunk watch is where, every summer, chosen merfolk are assigned to a touristy island group, like the Cyclades, and they take turns every night for _three months_ to sit by the beaches, cliffs, jetties; watching to see if any humans fall in and start drowning or flailing their arms or screaming, and subsequently having to save said inebriated humans. Like being a lifeguard. But not getting paid for it.

When you’re 20, you start doing drunk-watching every summer until you’re 25. The reason for this is that they only want young, fit merpeople doing the job. Think of it like military service. But for a “good” cause. Minghao turned 20 last November, and so, here he is, on an island in the Cyclades – he doesn’t even know what it’s _called;_ something like Narcos or Xanax – for the next three months, making sure no one dies in the Aegean Sea’s rapid currents.

Only a week has gone on the island. 

And he has never been more bored in his life.

 “I spy with my little eye,” starts Minghao, “something beginning with ‘W’.”

“Window?” says Soonyoung, blasé, and Minghao sees him looking up at the houses a few metres above them. They’re sitting in the water by a beach, on the other side of the island’s port. The place they’re stationed by tonight and several nights ahead is below the road, and they can’t really see what’s happening above them, but there’s not really that many people out and barely anyone has been on the beach tonight.

For the last two hours they’ve been switching between playing _Guess the Celebrity I’m Thinking of, Fuck Marry Kill,_ and _I Spy._

“Nope. Not window.”

 “Windowsill.” 

“Nope.” 

“Window frame.”

“Nope?”

“Window jamb liner.”

“Huh?” Minghao says. “You’re thinking too fucking deep. It’s _easy_.”

“Window ledge?”

“That’s literally the same as ‘windowsill’.” Minghao looks at Soonyoung’s bored expression. “Should I tell you?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “‘Water’.” And he laughs, and Soonyoung turns to face him, glaring at his teasing grin.

“You’re _such_ a prick,” Soonyoung grunts.

“Your turn,” Minghao says, sing-song voice.

“Fuck you,” Soonyoung says. “I spy with your little dick–” Minghao rolls his eyes– “something beginning with ‘H’.”

“ _H_ _hhhhh,_ ” Minghao says. “ _H…_ ouse?”

“Well done,” Soonyoung says. 

“Was it?”

 “No.” Pause. “Idiot.”

“Well, what was it?”

“Hot guy.”

“Hot guy?”

Soonyoung points at the road above them, and Minghao, who only ever wears his glasses in human form, can only make out some sort of shape, strolling down the pavement. Like, a clump of meat. Walking. He squints as if this will somehow help him.

“I can’t even fucking see him,” Minghao says. “How can you see something that far away?” Having functional eyesight must be nice. And cheap. He sighs and continues, “Anyway, Soonyoung. We’re on a _human strike._ Remember?”

Well. At least _he’d_ been following their boycott religiously for the last two years. Soonyoung, on the other hand, isn’t as committed. As expected, Soonyoung completely ignores his, deep in thoughts. “If we make loud noises, we’ll attract him down.”  

“He’ll run away,” Minghao says, exasperated. “Only a white woman in a horror movie would walk _closer_ to loud noises coming from the sea.” Minghao waves his hands to get his point across, with no luck whatsoever, then looks up that the supposed hot guy has stopped on the pavement by the road. He turns to Soonyoung, who just sighs and says: “A man who likes astronomy. Just take me.”

Every vein in Minghao’s body bursts. “Soonyoung. We’re striking. _Hello?_ ”

“We? Oui? _Oui?_ Are you speaking French?” snaps Soonyoung. “Let me remind you that I never agreed to this ‘human boycott’. Mermen suck fucking dick.”

Here’s the thing. Soonyoung is Minghao’s absolute best friend, and he loves him, and he would spend any shitty three months on any shitty island to be with him. But, he drives Minghao crazy. Up the wall. Batshit crazy. 

“All humans do is destroy,” Minghao says, waving his arms around. “Oceans. Seas. Natural ecosystems. The rainforest. Marine life is decreasing rapidly, and d’you who’s fault it is that by 2030, most of–”

“Listen, Hao, this is because when you were 18, some Italian guy broke–” 

“It’s not about _me_ or any ‘Italian guy’–” Soonyoung visibly rolls his eyes– “it’s about the fact that humans are selfish creatures, and, and all they do is destroy, then try to fix what they’ve destroyed and call themselves _good people,_ and here we are, suffering from their chronic, narcissistic mistakes and total lack of empathy, and yes, merpeople aren’t the epitome of decency, but at least we–”

“Is this ‘cause Emilio–”

“It’s not about _Emilio_ –”

 “Yeah, but it so _is_ –”

“Soonyoung, if you continue, I will lose my shit,” Minghao says, feeling his pulse rising steadily.

“Emilio broke your heart,” says Soonyoung, and Minghao imagines a tidal wave appearing out of nowhere, knocking them both unconscious, while Soonyoung crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows. “And now you’re living in denial that not everyone–”

“Can you _shut up_?” Minghao says.  

“Nope.”

“Seriously.”

“E–mi–li–o.”

Minghao raises his voice a few thousand decibels: “I’ll scream.”

“You’ll just embarrass yourself,” Soonyoung says.

 “You think I care?” Minghao says.

 “Emilio,” Soonyoung repeats, happily, and Minghao lets out a scream. 

Sometimes, when he gets really, really angry at Soonyoung – it’s actually not an uncommon occurrence, believe it or not – he just screams instead of trying to talk sense into him. That’s because the two of them, they’re so close that they’re basically brothers. Which means they annoy the shit out of each other. And sometimes even get into arguments and go on for days without speaking. And screaming can be his coping mechanism. Except, he usually does it underwater, preferably in a bubble of some sort, so no one really can hear it. Now, he’s completely forgotten that the reason this whole discussion started was because there was an ostensibly attractive human man standing at the top of the road.

Of course Soonyoung had done this. Tricked Minghao into screaming to send some “hot”, “Greek”, “astrology-loving” guy running down the stairs to the beach to see what happened. Of _course_ he had. But, the thing was that Minghao genuinely didn’t think anyone would actually go running. So to speak. It turns out there are people stupid enough to go running towards danger instead of legging it the fuck away; people who constantly seem to believe they’re courageous soldiers on battlefields, because both Minghao and Soonyoung see – Minghao a little worse than Soonyoung sees – the guy starting jogging down the pavement, towards the stairs.

Upon realising that he’d let his emotions take over him and been tricked by his mega-fucking-shithead best friend slash worst enemy, Minghao turns to Soonyoung, gritting his teeth. Soonyoung’s smile has not once dropped from his face during this entire exchange.

Yes. Only a single week has gone on the island. God, help him please.

“You’re dead to me,” Minghao says, pointing his finger in Soonyoung’s face. What’s he doing? Is he trying to be some villain from an American movie? He might as well mimic slicing a head off by dragging a finger across his neck. “I’ll hide while you try to think of some shitty excuse to tell this guy.” He looks Soonyoung up and down. “God – he’ll think you’re just here, alone in the water, half naked. How does that _feel?_ ”

“Feels great,” Soonyoung says, and the guy they tricked down has finished running down the stairs and is now on the beach. “Because _I’ll_ be the one hiding.”

With that being said, Soonyoung ducks underwater.

“Huh?” Minghao hisses, trying to grab Soonyoung back up again, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the human making his way towards them. Soonyoung swiftly dodges Minghao’s attacks. _“Soonyoung.”_ He stays underwater. He’s most likely created an air bubble around himself. One which Minghao can’t rupture. One which Soonyoung can’t hear him through. “Soonyoung, if you don’t get your devoid-of-IQ self the fuck back up h–” 

“Hi? _Hello?_ Is there anybody there?” the human guy calls out. He’s only a few metres away from Minghao now. Minghao swears under his breath, watching as the human approaches the water cautiously. “I, uh, heard a scream, um–” three metres away maximum; he hesitates, eyebrows furrowed as he takes in Minghao’s angry expression– “and, are you okay? Has anything happened? Um.” On that note, he kind of trails off.

It’s too late to go undercover now. It’s _also_ too late to kick Soonyoung’s ass to Pennsylvania and back. He’ll just have to gauge his own eyes out and starting digging his own grave. Careful to hide the less-human, so to speak, part of his body underwater, Minghao stutters out a reply. “I’m, I’m _fine._ ” 

There is a reason for his uttering, believe it or not. And it’s thanks to the guy who has started partially wading into the water to hear Minghao properly. And he can finally see the stranger’s _face._ And this is what he wants to do: grab the nearest rock, give himself a concussion and subsequently drown in the shallow waters of one of the several beaches on Xanax, Greece.

The guy asks, again, “Are you okay?” and Minghao summons every currently single useless, non-functioning, homosexual brain cell he has up there and says, trying desperately to avoid some kind of aneurysm, “I’m good.”

Spoiler: he’s neither good nor fine. The reason for this is obvious. No one likes being embarrassed – especially _shirtless_ – in front of a good looking person – especially a good looking stranger – unless the shirtlessness and being publicly humiliated is a sexual preference of theirs. And, here’s spoiler number two: Soonyoung does have eyes, after all. The guy in front of him is hot. Like, hot as a fucking, a fucking, something that’s hot, like an oven, like molten lava, like, like, like, a stainless steel playground slide in the summer. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Minghao says, and, well, global warming schlobal schwarming, what-fucking-ever, his cheeks are growing rapidly redder by every second passing. It’s the sea. It’s the sea. It’s the sea. Heating his body up. That makes sense, doesn’t it? The Aegean Sea, part of the Mediterranean, in the summer. He’ll not allow a human – let alone a human _male_ – to send him into such warm, uncomfortable panic. “I’m just, uh, looking for my earring.”

Minghao closes his eyes, then opens them, trying for a polite smile. He may detest humans, but he’s not some gargoyle who can’t grin at strangers every now and again. Attractive. Men. Who happen to be strangers. He tucks some hair behind his eyes. Since when was his hair long enough to tuck behind his ears? Or is he just not the type to usually commit the act of tucking one’s hair behind one’s ears? Because he doesn’t ever _tuck his hair,_ perhaps? “See?”

During the time the man had stood there, blinking at him after his, _“I’m just, uh, looking for my earring,”_ Minghao had had time to quickly pull out his small hoop on his left ear and throw it into the water. Obviously, the stranger hadn’t noticed this small maneuver, and all _he_ was seeing was Minghao’s ear and a total lack of a piercing, so he simply had to believe him.

The stranger regards him strangely, then suddenly his aura changes completely. Minghao has no idea what happens, but what he sees is this: the attractive young man’s eyes widen, his lips part a little, and he starts stammering out his next words. “Um, uh,” he says, reaching the peak of human intelligence, “oh, okay, I, I guess.” 

So, maybe Minghao’s earring story was a tad bit off. He has no idea why he thought of that as a reason to be standing, shirtless, by a small patch of beach by the port. Of course, it would’ve been easier to just say, _“Just taking a swim,”_ or, _“Nice weather, right?”_ or something completely normal, but now Minghao’s earring is _actually_ lost, and the stranger is staring at him with a weird look on his face.

And maybe Minghao’s Greek isn’t completely perfect – he’d been studying it the best he could to prepare; learning languages comes easy to merfolk as they biologically and socially are forced to travel around a lot, never allowing themselves to grow too attached to one place – but he wouldn’t consider it awful. A local must understand him. What is it that has this unnecessarily attractive man staring at him like that?

The look isn’t really confused; it’s more a sheepish one. As if he’s actually seen Minghao naked. It almost makes him feel embarrassed, too, as some sort of product of the guy’s awkwardness.

Humans. He’ll simply can’t understand them.

 

 

 

And then, seeing a form of movement behind the stranger’s back, and a tuft of black hair and a silhouette peeking out from behind as if to see what’s happening, Mingyu suddenly understands that what he’s done is radically, radically wrong.

This is what he’s done: mistaken a scream of pleasure for a scream of help. And he gets it now. He _gets it now_. Now, he’s standing in front of this guy, who’s obviously just been having a raunchy time in the sea, with the partner hiding behind his back, probably stifling a grin at Mingyu’s obliviousness – the guy in front of him still has rosy cheeks, his forehead slightly damp from sweat no doubt – and the stranger is coming up with stupid excuses as to why he’s in the water to not publicly embarrass himself, when in actuality Mingyu is the only one making a complete fool of himself. How couldn’t he have understood? The stranger in the water hasn’t moved once from his spot – because he’s obviously, obviously, obviously trying to hide whoever gave him the _best blowjob of the 21st fucking century._

Now, call him dramatic, but Mingyu’s fully panicking. And he’s still holding a plastic bag of vodka, and he realises that he’s gone rigid. His tongue tastes less of the grapes’ tangy summer freshness and more of chagrin. For fuck’s sake – how does he even get out of this situation from here? “Um, uh,” Mingyu says, smartly. “Oh, okay, I, I guess.”

In his mind, he begs for some huge creature with semblance to like, a Gibbering Mouther to come and swallow him alive. No chewing. Just like that. Bad for your digestion. Whatever. Anything. A sea monster, perhaps. _Anything._ The stranger regards his facial expression silently, most likely trying to understand the 180-degree-swap in his attitude, and Mingyu finds his ears reddening at the somewhat intense gaze.

The the guy shrugs. “I mean, there’s no real point. I’ll probably never find it.”

After five seconds of stillness in the conversation, Mingyu realises that he should probably reply. He says, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Oh, well,” the stranger says, shrugging awkwardly again. “Nothing to do about it.” The guy speaks fluent Greek, his sentences are absolutely grammatically correct. But he has some sort of twinge to his words. Like he’s only learnt textbook Greek and hasn’t really spoken it with anyone before. Especially not with anyone on Naxos. But at the same time, he doesn’t seem like a tourist. Strange.

“Nope, nothing to do about it,” Mingyu repeats. “Really. Nothing. To do. About it.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

The stranger tries for another smile. And that’s Mingyu’s cue to leave. 

Well. He should’ve never come here in the first place. So, it’s really his cue to return back home and forget this entire exchange ever existed. And hope to never bump into this guy again. And this: be glad he won’t be on the island in three months time. He’ll be in Athens, settling into his dorm room at university, completely free from the shackles of his small, miserable hometown on an island people only know of thanks to _Kitron_ (Wikipedia: citron liqueur produced locally on Naxos). That is if everything goes as smoothly as he’s planned. And the shitty thing about life is that nothing really goes as smoothly as planned.

Mingyu starts making his way out of the water, unfreezing his legs and simultaneously forcing himself to smile at the person – the _people_ – a few metres away from him.

The stranger regards him. And then he says this: “See you around,” but it sounds more like a, “See you around?” As in this: Mingyu can hear the question mark, the hesitation, in his statement.

“You’ll never see me again,” Mingyu says. In his head. In reality he replies, “Have a nice evening,” in lieu of answering a ‘see you’ back. Actually, it becomes more of an embarrassed mumble. _Havv anice mhhheevening_. The guy nods in response. And Mingyu turns around, heading for the stairs, his ears splitting into thousands of shades of red.

 

 

 

Chan raises his eyebrows. “Okay, so,” he starts, “you’re basically killing yourself over the fact that some guy got his back split open in the sea and you like, walked in on it?”

“Well, we don’t know for sure _he_ got his back split open,” Mingyu says, rolling his eyes. “But I can assure it was pretty fucking embarrassing. And it was so _obvious,_ too.”

“Well, we don’t know anything ‘for sure’,” Chan says. He stirs a straw around in his glass of lemonade, ice cubes clinking together in a satisfying manner.

They’re sitting on the small front porch to Chan’s house. Since Mingyu’s house is located on a side street, they can’t get as much sun there as they can by Chan’s, directly facing the sea. And Chan is borderline rich. He always denies it, but it’s the closest you can get to rich in their neighbourhood. Well, not millionaire rich _-rich_ , but his mother’s a lawyer or something, and his dad’s job is unclear but he travels all around the world to do it. So, yeah. They have money. Not that Mingyu doesn’t love his own home and his own family, but drinking rich-people lemonade and eating strawberries is a nice day to spend a Sunday morning. As opposed to rebuilding their top floor – currently falling apart – and making conversation his dad’s friends slash uncles slash neighbours slash colleagues. He and Chan sip their _San Pellegrino Limonata_ poured neatly into red wine glasses _._ Chan, he’s the kind of person who actually knows the difference between red wine glasses, white wine glasses, and champagne glasses. Even though he’s the same age as Mingyu, they’ve always stated the fact that Lee Chan was overtly, psychologically born at age 40. He came out of the womb wearing oversized sunglasses and a silk bathrobe, making himself a morning espresso.

The weird thing is that Chan isn’t necessarily obnoxious about his family’s richness, he just has enough money to always pay for dinner for the two of them, not have to check the price tag before buying clothes, and never having to worry about breaking or ruining things in his home. Mingyu had been horrified when he’d once accidentally dropped an expensive-looking bowl on their floor, and pieces of glass were thrown onto every square centimetre of the room. _“Oh, fuck,”_ Mingyu’d said, 13 years old, _“where was that bowl from? Italy?”_ To which Chan had replied: _“It’s fine. Just stay still. Don’t move! I’ll get the vacuum cleaner.”_ Mingyu had stared at him, but obeyed his order. Chan had said, _“It’s_ fine, _Mingyu. I’ll get a new one tomorrow.”_ It turned out it was worth more than 300-something euros, yet Chan had only really cared about making sure neither of them accidentally stood on the glass. 

Mingyu rests his head on his elbow. “Chan, I saw someone behind him.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean he was _blasted_ from the _b_ –”

“Can you stop saying th–”

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Chan continues, loudly. “Maybe he just like, needed a piss.” 

“Accompanied by someone else?”

“Some people need that extra push to dare do things.”

“Dare do _what_? Voyeurism?”

“Piss in the ocean.” Chan shrugs when Mingyu stares at him in disbelief. “You never know what’s lurking down there.” 

“The only thing–” momentarily putting his glass down to throw his hands up and air-quote– ‘lurking down there’ was an _erection,_ Chan,” Mingyu says, putting his knees up on the chair, letting them rest against the table. Chan sits on the other side of the table, stretching his legs out on the empty seat next to Mingyu. He groans out loud. “It’s so _embarrassing_. What if I see him again?”

“Oh, get over it,” Chan saying, not budging a single muscle to show remorse for Mingyu. “He’s just some tourist. And if you see him again, so what? You’re outta here soon, anyway.”

“He spoke _perfect Greek,_ ” Mingyu says, staring at the ice cubes melting. Watering down the sparkly lemonade. “That wasn’t some stupid, sunburnt tourist.”

“Let me repeat myself,” says Chan. “You’re outta here soon, anyway.”

Mingyu takes a few gulps of his drink. “You’re right.”

“How’s the Hansol situation going, anyway?” Chan says, changing the subject, and Mingyu’s eye twitches at how the conversation being switched to his least favourite one.

“You mean the vodka, the smoking or the partying?” Mingyu says, and Chan gives him a pointed look. Mingyu sighs, turning away from Chan to stare out at the ocean. It’s much more peaceful during the day. At night, the water feels like a dark abyss, a black hole, a power or movement, stretching from one endless side of the universe to the next, waiting to swallow the moon whole. “I’m getting to it.”

“He’s gonna go mad,” Chan says.

Mingyu thinks about Hansol’s various stages of not getting what he wants. And Hansol’s various stages of anger. And Hansol’s various stages of sadness. And Hansol, in general – how he can overreact and let his feelings get in the way of logic. It’s probably what’s made Mingyu hesitate every single time he’s had the chance to tell him. “He’s gonna go mad.” Mingyu repeats Chan’s words, albeit in a sadder manner, sighing. “And he’s gonna be so mad at Dad for not saying. And at you, too, probably.”

“Mhm,” Chan says. The two of them have been tight since primary school, meaning that Chan knows Hansol practically as well as Mingyu does.

They sit in silence for a few moments. And then eventually: “Was he hot? The guy in the ocean, I mean.” says Chan.

“Yes,” says Mingyu, groaning.

“Seriously?” says Chan. “Why don’t we know him?”

“I don’t _know,"_ says Mingyu.

Chan huffs a little. “Could’ve made a move.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Why not?”

“He was like, totally _naked._ ”

“Sounds like something only a coward would be discouraged by,” says Chan, grinning at Mingyu.

Mingyu rolls his eyes, biting into an ice cube that has managed to make its way into his mouth. “I could barely see him, anyway.” 

So, the thing is this. Mingyu hasn’t yet told his little brother that he’s going to Athens to attend university after the summer. Because he knows Hansol will explode. We’re talking Chernobyl-mode explosion. And if Mingyu would’ve told him a month ago, when he knew he’d gotten in, or even before that, when he was applying, he knows that Hansol would’ve guilted him out of it somehow. Or, Hansol would’ve just been miserable, angry, and probably still ignoring Mingyu at the very moment.

The people he’s told so far is their dad – well, obviously, really, as they had to fill out all the forms, apply for the financial aid programme, and as they went to Athens together for Mingyu’s interview – and Chan. Because there’s no way he could’ve kept it from Chan. No secret of his can ever be kept from Chan. In fact, Naxos doesn’t need its own daily newspaper when they have Lee Chan. He’s just the kind of person who knows everything about everyone. It comes in handy sometimes, being his best friend, as Mingyu doesn’t really have that many other friends – or, he does have friends; but he doesn’t meet them half as often as he meets Chan – to have as sources of information. Who’s fucking who, who’s dating who – everything like that. They live in a small city on a relatively small island. There aren’t that many teenagers, and everyone went to same school growing up. So, generally, information spreads pretty quickly. And, if there’s anyone you should go to find out things about, it’s Chan. He always states that he’s not _gossiping_ , he’s just “letting the masses know about things they’d already find out about eventually”.

Of course, Chan had promised to not tell a single soul about Mingyu leaving for Athens. He hadn’t even told one of their mutual friends, Seokmin, because Seokmin would’ve told Seungkwan, and Seungkwan would’ve told Seungcheol, and Seungcheol would’ve told his what feels like thousands of friends, and then everyone on Naxos and their mother and their grandmother would’ve known about Mingyu going to med school in the capital city of their country.

And then Hansol would’ve found out. 

And if hadn’t heard from Mingyu first, it would’ve been even more disastrous than it already would’ve been if the words had come directly from the honest, apologetic mouth of Mingyu.

Mingyu gulps, now. Even thinking about the situation makes his stomach turn. So, instead of continuing to talk the guy at the beach yesterday – he’d almost forgotten about this in the midst of his train of thoughts, if he’s honest – he asks Chan, “Do you know if Hansol’s been seen with anyone. A girl? He was really desperate about getting the vodka for someone. Like, _Superbad_ -desperate.” _Superbad_ is a really shitty film they sometimes watch together. And they always complain about how shitty it is, but laugh at the same jokes every time. 

Chan looks over to him, shrugging, then putting his glass down and stretching his arms forward. “No clue.”

Mingyu squints.

“I’m serious,” says Chan. “Wouldn’t he have told you?”

“I doubt it,” says Mingyu. “If he told me, I’d tease him for it so hard.”

Chan laughs. “What are brothers for?”

 

 

 

A common misconception about merpeople is this: they can’t walk on land. That is, in fact, extremely false – hence it just being introduced as a misconception. In actuality, the truth is that merpeople nearly spend more time on land than in water. The moment their entire bodies are out of water, they transform into their human form. And the moment their bodies are fully submerged – not just when they get touched by a drop of water, for God’s sake, stop watching Disney channel mermaid films – into water, they regain their merform.  

And, _no_. Merfolk don’t have huge underwater civilizations. Castles, houses, statues? None of it. Most of them live on land. They have to eat, sleep, have sex, fall in love; just as normal human beings do. But they can also breathe underwater, and have the ability to swim quickly and can also create air bubbles to protect themselves from potential dangers. So, they’re practically like people, except they can survive longer periods in seas and oceans without, well, dying. And that’s why they’re forced to do the shit that humans can’t biologically do. And about kings and queens? No, they don’t exist either. Well. There’s the mercouncil. They do all the official work – negotiate with human governments, strike deals, spread information. But usually, merfolk have human passports and officially live in whichever country they were born in. Minghao has Chinese passport, whereas Soonyoung has a Korean one.

Some merpeople live their entire lives as humans. They settle down with a nice, humanly creature, have most likely humanly children – merfolkism is not a dominant gene, meaning that even after having unprotected sex with a human, it’s still unlikely for the childbearer to birth merchildren – and only undergo metamorphosis during bath time, avoiding dipping themselves in public pools and beaches. It’s not unusual to live like this. The stressful part of transforming from merform into human form is that you, obviously, are completely naked from the moment your tail start to dry and merge into your human legs. That’s why you have to be quick, stealthy, hidden. And also why most merpeople who switch between the two forms everyday often live by the shore, hiding clothes on the beaches they live by. Quick getaways.

And that’s why Soonyoung and Minghao are currently staying in the shittiest, smallest inn on the entire island of Naxos – it’s close to the beach they’re doing their job at. And apart from it being cheap, that’s really the sole reason they’re staying at _Poseidon’s Palace._  

Also this: _Poseidon’s Palace_ is the sole reason they spent their days walking around Naxos, acting like tourists, sitting in cafés for hours, passing time, instead of spending time in their rented room. They’d almost pissed themselves laughing when they’d seen the hotel for the first time. Seriously. It could hardly be considered a hotel or even a motel. The reception’s like stepping into someone’s living room. It’s tiny, dirty, and the decorations are dirt cheap. The walls? Orange and brown. The floor is covered in a horrific wall-to-wall carpet. And the woman in the reception, who is there every morning when they leave to eat edible breakfast, grunting a _See you later_ , looks as though she hates everything in and about her life.

To say the least, being in Room 35 isn’t the nicest way to spend a warm Sunday afternoon. 

Minghao, obviously, had said it was a bad omen when he saw that the room’s number isn’t one divisible by three. He’s superstitious like that. In his own way. 

Emilio would always make fun of him when he purposefully avoided walking on any manhole covers.   

Minghao sighs aloud. He and Soonyoung are having ice lattes in some café close to the port, and it would be a nice moment if he could stop thinking about the human guy yesterday at the beach. He’d been speculating about why his attitude had changed so quickly, and Soonyoung had jokingly said, _“Maybe he thought that you were like, doing something in the water,”_ to which Minghao had whipped his head around, stared at Soonyoung and said, _“Oh,_ fuck. _That’s probably it. Fuck.”_

Soonyoung says, “It’s not that bad, Hao.” 

Minghao says, frowning, “It’s _bad_ . That poor guy probably thought I was like, pissing in the sea, or, or, or, he could’ve seen you before you hid underwater and thought that we were like, _having sex_ –” his frown deepens at this– “I mean why else would I be shirtless–”

“Dude, you could’ve just been swimming.”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me, Kwon,” Minghao snaps. “I’m embarrassed.”

“If your theory is true, then he’s definitely the one who’s embarrassed here,” Soonyoung says, and for once something he says makes sense. “Listen, if you’re this stressed about it, you should find him. And apologize.”

Minghao folds his arms, taking a large clunk of his ice latte. “No.”

“Why?” Soonyoung says, incredulously.

“At least _I’m_ planning on following the human boycott.”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “You’re being annoying as fuck. It wouldn’t even be difficult to find the guy. Everyone in this city probably knows each other. Just ask any young person if they know him.” 

“I don’t know his name.”

“So? Just describe him. Can’t be anyone else that tall and attractive here, can there?”

So, that’s the story of how Minghao finds himself walking up to a young couple who are sitting by the table next to theirs, asking if they know a guy who’s like, two metres tall, decently good looking, and has two teeth that meet his lip in semblance to a vampire.

The insane thing is this: _they actually know him._

“Oh, Mingyu?” the guy says, virtually straight away. “Kim Mingyu, right?” He looks at his girlfriend for confirmation, and she nods and says, “Yeah, Kim Mingyu. I know his little brother. Mingyu, he’s really, really, tall, and he definitely has those vampire teeth you described.” She smiles. “Why are you looking for him?”

“I, um,” Minghao starts. What does he say now? I fucked up, embarrassed him to Hell and back – subconsciously, though; it’s not as if I’m some manipulative bastard – and now I want to redeem myself but I don’t even know his name or even where he lives so please help me? “We’re old friends, but he seems to have moved houses?” So, he’s completely winging it with this. “You don’t happen to know where he lives?”

This makes the girl frown. “I think I do know where he lives.” She paints up a vague picture of the house, explaining it more for her partner to remember than to Minghao to learn. In fact, he can’t really catch what she’s on about. “Hansol once took us there.”

The guy nods as she talks, as though he’s remembering some distant memory of Mingyu (supposedly, this is Minghao’s hot stranger) and Hansol (supposedly, this is Minghao’s hot stranger’s little brother) old 70s-inspired house. “Yeah, yeah, I do remember that. But, did he really ever move?” he asks, looking perplexed. “I thought they’ve lived there for like, forever. I mean, it really is _old._ That house looks like it’s falling apart.” 

“Oh, really?” Minghao says. He lets a fake laugh escape from the chamber of destruction. As in, his mouth. “Silly me.” He scratches the back of his head, still grinning awkwardly. “And that house they’ve lived in forever, that would be where, now again? My head is really not with me today.” He knocks on his skull and fakes opening a door to it, pulling out an imaginary brain and making this huge show of asking where it is. This makes the couple laugh a little forcedly, and Minghao is reminded of why he never talks to humans in the first place. They’re all fake laughs, fake politeness. Not that merpeople aren’t the exact same. No, no. Fakeness exists in all forms of life. Picking on humans for their humanly manners, however, is merely one of his many hobbies.

“Well,” the girl says. “You go to what we usually the [incoherent] – just follow the water all the way around from here and you’ll find that – and then when you get to a street I _think_ is called [murmur]–” Minghao’s textbook Greek is not cutting it with her quick tongue and extensive use of slang words– “turn that corner there. And, yeah, you’ll see Mingyu’s house straight away. Quite hard to miss.”

“Blue window shutters,” the guy chips in. “If I remember correctly.” 

“Blue window shutters,” Minghao repeats, putting on his most genuine smile. He repeats it back, but has no idea what the fuck actually is blue. _Window shutters?_ What was the guy saying? “I got you.” They stand in silence for a few more heartbeats, when Minghao remembers that it’s now his turn to speak. Again. When will this conversation be _over?_ “Well, thank you for the help.” What else, what else? “See you around?” Even he himself can see that he is not convincing anyone with that weak excuse of a goodbye. But the couple seems to buy it, because they reprodicate the See you!, and they do it rather happily at that – Minghao has realised that humans seem to quite enjoy helping people with things like giving directions; it gives them a faint feeling of superiority and intellectual dominance of a sort – and they walk off together in the opposite direction, feeling good about themselves for helping a lost, sad, bad–at–theatre–ing soul trying to find his way to Kim Mingyu’s house that maybe is blue and perhaps has something blue related to it.

“Well,” Soonyoung says, upon seeing Minghao’s return back to the café table, “I see my strategy worked,” to which Minghao downs the remaining few centilitres of his watered-down ice latté and says, “It worked, but I didn’t hear where he actually lives,” to which Soonyoung groans and says, “Are you kidding,” to which Minghao says, “Nope,” to which Soonyoung groans again to which Minghao grins and says, “But I got his name, so it should be fine,” to which Soonyoung says, “Well, looking who’s smiling his ass off over a boy now,” to which Minghao flips him the bird.

“Oh, real original.” Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Here’s a whole bouquet of them!” He puts his hand up in front of Minghao’s face.

Minghao promptly pulls Soonyoung out of his chair, ignoring his wild protests, and starts dragging him to the general direction he thinks the girl was talking about. Maybe, perhaps, may–fucking–haps. “Let’s just go find Kim Mingyu’s house so I can explain. Or, at least, I don’t _know_. Apologize or some shit. I don’t know.” He really doesn’t know. Why exactly is he doing this? He’s just making things more awkward. He’s taking a spade and continuing to dig himself a deeper hole. Soon, he’ll be hitting ground water.

“So just boycott the human boycott?” Soonyoung says, smirking. “Or does that like, cancel the original boycott out?”

“You’re one to talk,” Minghao snaps.

“Kim Mingyu, was it? Sounds Korean.” He says Korean like this: _Korean._ There’s just something to it. You know, that teasing, coquettish voice film characters use to tease their best friends. Except Soonyoung isn’t Amanda Bynes in the early 2000s. He’s just a dickhead.

“No shit it sounds Korean,” Minghao grumbles.

“Keep sulking.” Soonyoung smiles, practically skipping instead of walking. He only really gets happy like this when he can prove a point against Minghao, “and someday, your frown will turn permanent.” They continue bickering all the way down a road which has some name he didn’t really bother to check. Believe it or not, they do manage to loosely follow the couple’s instructions – they’re still following the main road by the sea and they’ve at least managed to not kill each other yet, which can be only be a good sign. Which corner to turn at and which street to walk down and find themselves at K. M.’s house? He has no clue. Every house in the neighbourhood looks very much the same to him. Whitewashed, cube-shaped. Why he even wanted Soonyoung to come along with him? Now, he really has no fucking _clue._

Thirty minutes later, that is, an entire  _half an hour_ later, in this small, small ‘city’ area, they still haven’t gotten any closer to find Mingyu’s seemingly _unmissable_ house, leading the two of them to believe that they are completely, utterly lost. This is how Soonyoung phrases it, blatant as he is, “Hao, this is starting to feel like a wild goose chase.” 

And for the next half an hour, it is a wild goose chase of a sort. But the relentless search eases up as they ask a few more people about a Kim Mingyu, hoping for answers; praying everyone here really does know everyone; a statement which turns out to be only remotely true. Some people dismiss Minghao’s question, some people at least pretend to stand there and think, _hmmmm_ do _I know a Mingyu_ , and a very small percentile of the people they ask actually _do_ know of Mingyu. Mostly, they know of Mingyu’s father who they learn works as a fisherman and is generally known in the neighbourhood. When Minghao asks why he’s known, the stranger – a benevolent, well-dressed old man wearing a cobalt blue beret and calmly smoking a cigarette to the side of the pavement – who happily tells them about Mingyu’s father and his career and his personality simply shrugs, smiles and says, “Well, he’s just a character, you know? Some people are just characters. He is one. Grumpy-looking but always kind and sweet when you talk to him. He becomes friends with every person he meets. Even the young, insecure postman, or the surly old lady who walks her three, small dogs early in the morning. He’s a character.”

Over an full hour later, Minghao and Soonyoung find themselves at Mingyu’s fisherman dad’s docks. The old man who seemed to know Mingyu’s dad quite well had said, helpful and kind as he was, that it would be the best place to find the duo. The old man they talked to seemed to know a little about everything, the way he spoke of the neighbourhood and the different kinds of people in it. He’d told them, _“I think you should go to the docks, and find the family’s boat._ Calla Lily _, she’s called."_  

So, here they are, standing in front of the _Calla Lily,_ small for a fishing boat yet majestical in an unconventional way, with a spotless deep, dark hue of purple–almost–burgundy, painted onto it, the unmistakable colour of a real black star calla lily flower, and beautiful as she is, she is also empty. That is, there’s no one in the boat. That is, E–M–P–T–Y. That is, there is _no one here._ That is, they found the boat, but not the person slash the people who were supposed to be in the boat.  

You know, any man over the ripe age of 60 wearing a beret automatically _seems_ to be a trustworthy source of information, but maybe he’d just gotten the days and times mixed up; you can’t really blame him for it. So, now they’re just standing in front of a beautiful boat with no sign of a human man inside.

Minghao says, quite blankly, “You know what? Fuck it.”

Soonyoung says, “Yeah, I’m starting to change my mind, too. It’s like someone up there really doesn’t want you to meet this Mingyu.” Minghao shoots him a half-assed glare. “I mean, God works in mysterious ways.” Soonyoung is an atheist, so’s Minghao, so he has no idea why Soonyoung says this, but he can somehow understand his friend’s words at the moment.

Minghao says, “You’re, well, you’re kind of right.”

Soonyoung smirks at this but instead of saying Right! Yes! I’m right!, which is what the expression resting on his face portrays, he says, “You could still leave something, though.”

Minghao says, “Huh?”

Soonyoung says, “Leave a note or something.” 

Minghao says, “What the fuck?”

Soonyoung says, “Yeah.”

Minghao says, “That is _the_ stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Soonyoung shrugs. “Just an idea.”

Minghao says, “You’re shit at those. We’ve just established this.”

Soonyoung says, “Yeah, yeah, sure, just try and trick me into thinking you’re right because you can use long words like, established,” and Minghao can’t help but smile.

 

 

 

(Late at night, right after their uneventful drunk-watching shift finishes, Minghao says he’s going for a short walk around the block, to explore the town centre at night and what _ev_ er, and Soonyoung yawns and waves him away with a quick Be quiet when you get back to our room. It’s only a half-lie – Minghao _does_ take a walk. Not around the block, though, and he certainly doesn’t do any exploring. Instead, he heads back to Mingyu’s father’s fisherman boat. At this time of night, the _Calla Lily_ would almost completely camouflaged in the dark water, if it weren’t for the moonlight streaming its way through the thick layer of clouds above. Making sure no one is around to watch, Minghao jumps in the water to find a few presents to put onboard the deck of the boat. Without leaving a single handwritten letter. Minghao, he prefers to be a little mysterious like that.)

 

 

 

During the summer holidays, Mingyu and Hansol get dragged onto the boat a lot. Their dad wants them to learn work discipline, group morals, and really wants to show them the ol’ family business. But when the three of them are all together onboard _,_ there is a serious void of work discipline and groups morals and instead, a serious amount of argumentation and anger. So, they usually only go out one at a time with their dad. They’re supposed to take an equal amount of turns in doing just this, but Mingyu finds he is involuntarily dragged out to sea a lot more than Hansol is. This is partially because Mingyu is the elder of the two by a five year age difference, meaning he is much stronger, experienced, and generally more helpful on the boat than a hormonal fifteen year old. It’s additionally thanks to Hansol being quite the expert at finding excuses to stay on Naxos for the day. There’s that expression – many excuses, most of them shitty. Something like that. Yeah. That’s Hansol. Instead of making fishing his number one priority and simply telling his friends, “Sorry, I can’t see you today, I’m helping my dad on the boat,” he gets better offers and then comes up with a see-through, horrendous fib as to why Mingyu should take over his ‘shift’ of the day, and of course their dad knows it’s a lie but since Hansol is the younger brother he gets away with it and could get away with anything and no one can be bothered to fight so Mingyu just puts his overalls and boots on and gets ready to walk to the docks for some classic father-son bonding time involving nothing short of the putrid stench of fish he has never gotten used to and a dash of seasickness. 

This morning, however – two days post Guy In Sea Incident, one day post meeting Chan – he and his dad are met with a peculiar, pretty funny surprise after hearing Hansol’s bad excuse of the week ( _“I really wish I could, but I completely forgot that I planned to do [thing Hansol would never do even with a gun to his head; today’s makebelieve event being ‘picking up litter from the beaches’] and I can’t really get out of it…”_ ) and walking a senere walk to the docks together, the clock having yet to strike 7:30 A.M., the sun having risen but barely a single cloud daring to place itself in the clear, almost ominously azure sky.

The surprise is this: they arrive to see that there one of their bigger buckets, on the deck of the boat, filled to the brim with fish. 

Breams, mullet, tuna, cuttlefish. Half a day’s worth of fishing in front of their very noses.

Mingyu’s dad has never seen anything like this, starting to laugh almost immediately, Mingyu, Mingyu, come and look at this, you come and take a photograph of this with your phone straight away, come on!, almost instantaneously waving it off as some practical joke played on them. Mingyu, on the other hand, can’t shake the confusion taking over his mind. If this was just some joke, why do no other neighbouring fishing boats have the same treatment? Strange, strange, strange.

His dad sees his perplexed look and shakes his shoulder. “Come on Mingyu, it’s _funny_. You cannot bite your fingernails and fingers off over this. Think of it like this: we now have much less fish to catch this morning! We can be back before 11, maybe 10 if we are lucky…” He trails off, looking over to see if Mingyu is listening to anything he’s saying. Which he is. So, he continues, “Let’s get started on the boat, okay, my flower?–” Mingyu’s dad has never really been one to care about forcing masculinity or societal norms on his sons or anyone else for the matter, and thus when he’s happy and wants to use a pet name of a kind, Hansol and Mingyu are always his flowers, his treasures, or his sunshine boys– “get the fish a nice, luxurious freezer box, okay – one fit for kings! – I’ll fix the rest.”

The rest of the day, Mingyu’s dad is in a good mood thanks to the fish in the bucket. It’s been a slow summer so far, and with the looming future of Mingyu telling Hansol he’s going away to Athens and subsequently going away to Athens, leaving his family and his childhood house and the island he grew up on. However small it may be anything happy to his dad is well needed and appreciated at the moment. 

Sure enough, they’re back by the docks before the hottest time of day, one in the afternoon, and as Mingyu ponders on what to do for the rest of the day, his dad turns to him and says, “Mingyu, run and buy some more garlic and lemon. I kept some gilthead bream for ourselves – let’s make some grilled _tsipoura_ for lunch, okay? Invite Chan over if he wants some. You were at his house yesterday, be polite.”

Mingyu nods. “I will. Do we have oregano at home?” Oregano is something his father would forget to tell him to buy, and then, once again, sending him out to get upon his arrival home. Somewhat a common pattern, a recurring event, as you may have realised.

“Of course we have dried oregano at home, Gyu,” his dad says, smiling and hitting Mingyu on the shoulder.  “Who do you take me for? A commoner? No, no, just buy some fresh lemon and one garlic head. We only really need two cloves for the fish.”

At the same time as this interaction is happening, Minghao is standing roughly ten metres away from the father and son, seeing as Mingyu says a goodbye to his dad who seems to be carrying home a freezer box of fish.

You’d maybe think that merpeople wouldn’t eat fish. Humans could perhaps consider it a form of cannibalism – “But, you’re eat a half of yourself; you’re eating your best friends you can talk to!” – but the truth is, merpeople are, again, not Ariel and Flounder, thank you very much!, and most of them see themselves as human when it comes to eating animal species. And about fish: they cannot, contrary to the popular belief, communicate with merfolk, and to merfolk fish are almost embarrassingly easy to find and kill for eating purposes. You simply dive further down into water, find a fat, good looking one, and put an air bubble around it so it can no longer breathe. Merpeople have been doing this for thousands of years – long before humans invented spears and rods and nets.

So, putting those fish in a bucket took less than twenty minutes of easy swimming around, and he managed to get up from the sea and slip back into human form without anyone seeing the metamorphosis or his very naked body. And in the morning he’d risen early, careful not to wake Soonyoung, talking in his sleep and drooling all over his pillow, and slipped quickly in the water to see Mingyu and his dad’s reaction to the small present. He’d hidden himself well, but could still see their reactions clearly: Mingyu’s knotted eyebrows, his father’s hearty laugh.

Now, Kim Mingyu, the guy who has been _plaguing his mind_ ever since Minghao saw his perplexed look and small smile upon being told to lighten up, is less than five metres away. This is it. Time to talk to him. Talk. Talk. Talk to him. Apologize. Do something. Come on, you stupid fucking human legs, walk! Work!

Eventually, his smooth plan of simply tapping Mingyu on the shoulder and saying, silky voice,  “Do I recognise you, or is my mind deceiving me?” is completely ruined by his clumsy, useless motherfucking feet, stumbling their way in front of Mingyu, as he stands there for a few heartbeats, cogs in brain squeaking to an abrupt stop, like a cartoon character putting his hand in the air to make a point but then merely being able to open and close his mouth like a goldfish. Not again. Not again. Not _again._

Mingyu’s lips are forming a perfect _o_ , again, and Minghao is now thinking back to their dreaded first meeting, and holy _shit_ Mingyu’s ears are reddening slightly and whattodowhattodowhattdoREDALERTREDALERTREDALERT. Minghao, brain currently breaking down in panic, decides to go for his original line. Anything to cut seconds of silence ticking away between them. “Do I recognise you–” fuckfuckfuckshit his voice is not _silky smooth_ it’s _malfunctioning fucking robot_ – “or is my mind demeaning–” no, that was _not right_ , God, that was not right!; Minghao gulps, sending up a silent prayer that Kim Mingyu is not a Greek major and maybe even stupid enough to not know the difference between deceiving and demeaning but obviously that is not the case since he’s hot and probably smart because he seems like one of those lucky assholes who is both– “me?” 

After successfully making his way through at least one sentence in okay-Greek and without accidentally switching to another language out of sheer anxiety, Minghao can almost feel some semblance to composure finding its way into his idiot brain.

“It’s not,” Mingyu says, now meeting Minghao’s eyes, his expression easing up. There’s almost a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. He must be pulling Minghao’s leg. There’s _no_ way he can be that composed. He should, if Soonyoung’s theory really _is_ true, be freaking the fuck out too. (Mingyu is, obviously, also freaking the fuck out too, but he’s determined to be a better actor than last time he interacted with the guy in front of him. Minghao just doesn’t know of this. Not being able to read minds? Lame as shit.) “I mean, it’s not just you. You were the one who lost his earring, right? In the sea?”

Minghao had completely forgotten about that bullshit excuse. “Yes, yes,” he says, almost stuttering but managing to mask it up by making it seem as though he wanted to say, “Yes, yes,” from the very start and wasn’t planning on just a single “Yes.”

A few more tormenting seconds pass.

Minghao has now realised he can, under no circumstances, tell Soonyoung he is shit at making ideas, when Soonyoung was the one who made every idea to meet up with Mingyu, and he would in a situation like this know exactly what to do and say without sounding like an IQ-exempted human being. That’s when it hits him. _I’m the bad decision maker. I’m the bad decision maker!_ This realisation, for whatever reason, calms him down immensely, because he is now cognizant of the fact that he’s absolutely shit at deciding what to do and what to say, so he opts to just fuck it and fuck himself even more and, no preamble needed, cuts to the main point of this conversation.

“Look,” Minghao says, middle of a busy city centre, in broad daylight, in his Greek which is neither perfect nor bad, “I wasn’t having sex in the sea. So,” he dares not even cast a single glance in Mingyu’s direction, “yeah. I know it may seem like that’s what I was doing, but I wasn’t. Not even a single handjob!” Okay, so he’s rambling. Saying unnecessary shit. Kill him. Bury him alive. Whatever. Fuck. This whole thing is Soonyoung’s fault. Maybe it’s also some dickhead Italian guy’s fault for making him incapable of feeling any sort of interest towards human guys until now. _Whatever._

Minghao continues, still not meeting Mingyu’s eyes: “I wasn’t really looking for my earring. I lied. The truth is that I was just, um, swimming with my friend, and when he saw you he was kind of like, Oh, there’s a hot dude up there, Minghao, let’s lure you down, so he tickled me, and then you came running and he hid behind me and I’m so, so, sorry for dragging you into that, the blame is on me, I’m ashamed to embarrass you.” The ground is incredibly interesting to be staring at, right now. “Truth being told, I’ve been trying to find you to apologise, and I’m happy to h–”

Minghao is interrupted by a sound finally leaving Mingyu’s mouth. He snaps his head up, finally, to be met with the view of Mingyu cracking up. He’s _laughing._ Minghao pauses. This was no the reaction he expected, but he can’t help but understand. Here he is, pouring his fucking heart and soul out, and saying shit like, Not even a single hand job!, and in another person’s eyes it’s a very laughable moment. Centuries pass, and Mingyu is still laughing his ass off, and Minghao can’t even be remotely angry because Mingyu is so, so, so, so, so cute, and in Minghao’s mind, he’s starting to be morph from being this attractive, Hollister model stranger, to a normal person who blushes and stutters in embarrassing situations and and snorts while laughing.

Minghao stands there, half-smiling, taking in Kim Mingyu exuding happiness.

“I’m,” Mingyu says, calming his breath. “ _I’msosorry_.” He breathes out a few times, wiping his eyes and meeting Minghao’s eyes at long last, the two of them grinning at each other despite everything that happened to them previously. “I’m so, so sorry. Holy shit. I’m not laughing at you–” Minghao thinks to himself that he maybe wouldn’t mind even if he was indeed laughing at him– “just at the absurdness of, well,” he gestures between them, “this whole situation. It’s bizarre. Something like this has never happened to me. Stuff like this just doesn’t _happen_ here. Never. It’s great. God, it’s great. Wait ‘til Chan hears this…” He smiles at Minghao. Successfully makes Minghao’s heart bounce around in his chest. “Sorry, I’m talking too much. I’m talking to myself. Impolite. What did you say your name was?” He’s talking quickly. Rapid fire words. Minghao can barely keep up.

“Xu Minghao,” says Minghao, upon realising Mingyu just made a 180 degree turn in the conversation and switched to asking him a question. A simple question. Really. Easy. His name. Yet Minghao feels it’s a miracle he could even get anything out. He feels as though he’s used up all his words for the next few months. “Yours?” Well. He already knows Mingyu’s name, but Mingyu doesn’t know that. 

“Kim Mingyu,” says Mingyu, still grinning all the way betwixt one end of the Naxos to the next. “This is fucking _brilliant._ ”

“I presume you’ve lived here a very long time,” Minghao says. Continuing the conversation. Good. That’s good. That’s good! He mentally claps himself on the shoulder. Thinks to himself that he’s doing exceptionally well for someone speaking in a language which isn’t remotely near to being his mother tongue. “You said that stuff like this doesn’t ‘happen here’.”

“Too long,” Mingyu says, shaking his head loosely. “Too long, I tell you. Living in a city with like, six thousand inhabitants, it’s claustrophobic in a way. Especially since it’s an island. Anyway, I’ve never seen you around here before. Are you here for the summer, or?” He sort of furrows his eyebrows again, the same way he did this morning. Minghao feels himself be almost mesmerised by this plain gesture alone. Imagine that. Making people fall in love with a simple few moves of some forehead muscles. “I assume you live on the mainland. Athens?”

Ah, yes. The dreaded question. Minghao scratches the back of his neck. “Actually, I’m not Greek.”

“You’re not?” Mingyu says, visibly shocked. “But your Greek, it’s too good to be one of a foreigner’s. I thought there’s just no way you could be some tourist. I mean, tourists are usually, well, stupider. Than you are.”

Minghao shrugs in a fake-modest way. “I’m a linguistics major, studying Greek and Italian at university in Rome.” Lies drip off his tongue. Although Minghao did live a year in Italy, it certainly wasn’t in Rome, and he certainly didn’t study Greek at university. But it’s a harmless lie. It’s not as if he could outright be like: Yeah, I’m a merman, you know those creatures you thought were mythical your entire life until, like, now. “Me and my friend decided to stay here for a few weeks or so, you know, just to practice the, uh, language.”

“You’re good at Greek,” Mingyu says.

Minghao blushes, says thank you politely and somewhat awkwardly, then changes the subject. “Do you speak Korean?” 

“No, no, my dad is Korean, my mother too, but I’ve neither lived there nor learnt the language. I only speak Greek and school English.” Mingyu gives him a small smile, shrugging gently as if to say, You know, and, That’s just how it is. Minghao could die on the spot. “It’s a shame, really. I wish I was more connected to my roots. There’s just not many Koreans here. Well, I know all of them, so we’re kind of a community.” Before Minghao has any time to reply and carry the conversation further, Mingyu asks, “Is it okay if we walk whilst talking? I have some errands to run. Just to the supermarket, that’s all.” 

“Uh,” says Minghao. “Sure.” 

They walk together. Now, he may have only known Mingyu less than a day, and he may be on a human boycott because he fucking _hates_ men – see, it’s not even solely thanks to a personal past issue of his, it’s just that in the history of everything they’ve never done anything but create fear and hate – but Minghao can’t help but wonder what it would be like to go on a date with Mingyu. He lets the thought rest in his mind, and doesn’t actually find it that awful. It would be a little like this. The two of them, together, chatting. He thinks that perhaps dates are so, so overdramatized. Walking to the supermarket with Mingyu is as good as eating at a five-star, Michelin restaurant named something pretentious in French like, like, like, _The Red Fish._  

They make easy conversation. Mingyu buys a few products from the supermarket – basic shit like, lemons, garlic, Minghao notes – they greet the cashier, and Mingyu ends up inviting Minghao over for lunch. “We’re making a traditional Greek lunch, _tsipoura_ ,” says Mingyu. Minghao hasn’t heard the word before, which Mingyu seems to understand, so he continues. “Gilthead bream. You grill it in the oven.” He smacks his fingers to his lips. “Delicious–” a smile, then a swift move onto the next subject– “you know, it’s actually a pretty funny story. You’ll never guess what happened this morning.”

On the inside, Minghao smirks – some secrets are just _too_ much fun. Honestly. He feels as thought he almost could fly. On the outside, he simply puts on a questioning face. “What happened?”

It’s not a long walk home. Mingyu tells the fish-in-bucket story from the top. First, explaining the entire lowdown. Some back story on his younger brother, his father who’s been working as a fisherman practically his entire life, and Mingyu’s abhorrence regarding working on the boat. In fact, he gets sort of sidetracked from the actual story, and ends up mostly talking about his brother whom he seems to be quite close to but can seemingly annoy the shit out of him.

As Mingyu is talking, Minghao listens intently, but at the same time tries to remember the way to Mingyu’s house slash pick up the names of the streets they walk on and past. Storing names and neighbourhood landmarks in his head.

“I’m sorry,” says Mingyu, after finishing recapping the story of which Minghao already knew the ending to. He pauses for a few seconds, giving Minghao an excuse to stare at him for a little – glasses on and all. Pointy, sharp teeth, thighs, full lips, thighs, set jawline, thighs. He feels woozy just thinking about how close the two of them are walking. Like, Mingyu’s chiseled arm is almost brushing against his side. Can arms even be chiseled? Mingyu’s are. What does chiseled even mean? Can his brain function properly, please? “I’m talking so much. Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

(What Mingyu doesn’t tell Minghao is that he always rambles when he’s nervous. But he doesn’t because he couldn’t bear to show Minghao that he has more weak spots than over-apologizing and ranting about his personal problems to strangers. Fuck. He’s already given away too much.)

(What Minghao doesn’t tell Mingyu is that he 1) also rambles when he’s nervous, and 2) doesn’t at all mind listening to him talk. But he doesn’t because he couldn’t _bear_ to be that much of a stereotype.)

They arrive in front of Mingyu’s house several seconds after Minghao says, “Really, I’m still learning the language, so it’s good for me to be a listener.”

Mingyu comes to abrupt stop, regards Minghao’s expression – slightly rosy ears; a good sign being him smiling instead of a deeply frowning – and then says that Minghao is just being _too_ kind, which is true, then he gestures at the house and says that they’ve arrived to their humble abode and all that shit, and then he realises that he’s mostly anxious about Minghao meeting his family because what’s he supposed to say and what will his dad thinks willhe think that Minghao is likeaboyfriend or something well Hansol definitely will because he thinks that everymaleMingyuknowsishissecretboyfriend okay okay it’s fine Minghao is just some guy he met on the street wellhe can’t exactly say thatsowhat’she goingtosay he’s a friend he’s a friend? he’s justafriend a very hot and very intelligent friend hejustmet but wants to impress and okay Mingyu can you fucking slow down your thoughts and can you please fucking _breathe._

He feels his palms sweating. Okay. No more showing of weakness. He’s Mingyu. He’s good at putting on an effigy of a person much cooler than he is in actuality. “Let’s go inside.” 

“Absolutely,” says Xu Minghao who definitely wasn’t having sex with some dude in the sea, meaning he’s most likely single. Or something.

The window to the kitchen is closed. For good measure, Mingyu adds, “It’s not the best thing you’ll ever see. In fact, everything is kind of old, rickety. And small.”

“Okay.”

“The windows on the top floor are broken.”

“Okay.”

“And our kitchen won’t fit all four of us at once, so we’ll have to carry the table into the living room.”

Minghao nods. 

“Let’s just go inside.”

When Mingyu opens the door and the two of them step inside, he’s instantly struck by the smell of cigarette smoke. Instead of calling out the usual, “I’m home,” he groans and says, “Dad, at least open the window if you’re gonna smoke.”

“I’m not smoking,” his dad says from the kitchen. “It’s a nicotine-scented candle.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes. “He always makes that joke.”

“Who are you talking to, Mingyu?” his dad asks. “Is Chan here?”

Hansol looks up from the sofa. Their ugly, vintage-in-a-bad-way sofa. He sees everything in Minghao’s eyes – as in, how shitty everything looks if you imagine seeing it for the first time ever. “Chan’s here?” He squints, and realises that Chan isn’t at all here. “ _Oh._  Not Chan. Hello.” Hello? That was polite as fuck for Hansol’s standards.

Minghao smiles and bows quickly. “I assume you’re Mingyu’s brother. It’s nice to meet you.” He looks as if he has no idea what to say next. And Mingyu can sort of understand him.

Hansol’s eyes grow large. He looks at Mingyu, then back to Minghao, then back to Mingyu and his eyes scream, Who _is_ this? “That’s… me.” Skepticism drips off his words. It’s almost as if Mingyu can physically _see_ an ellipsis hanging in the air.

This is when their dad steps out from the kitchen and also, upon seeing Minghao, changes his facial expression from his usual one of annoyance to one of pleasant surprise and puts on a very, very kind, polite – almost customer-service-esque; _“Tea, coffee, light refreshments?”_ – voice. “Good evening, hello, hello, come in.” He shakes Minghao’s hand and they exchange names. “You are a, say, friend of Mingyu’s?” He says ‘friend’ in such a strange way, and Hansol, from the sofa where he’s now stood up next to, gives Mingyu a pointed look.

So, he was right. The two of them most likely believe that Minghao is his boyfriend. 

“Yup.” Minghao confirms this with a nod.

Mingyu can feel Hansol and his dad raking their eyes up and down. Taking in Minghao’s John Lennon glasses, his wearing a denim jacket in close to 30 degree, balmy Mediterranean heat, his several ear piercings (five lobes, one cartilage and one conch), and his slightly reddened face. Well. There is quite a lot to take in, he can agree with them on that.

“Ah, yes, yes,” his dad says, still smiling. “Hansol, come over here, won’t you?” When Hansol has reluctantly made his way across the short space that is their living room, their dad elbows him in the ribs and says, “Don’t be impolite. Say hi properly.” He says properly like this: _properly._ Mingyu hates that. 

Hansol widens his grin and shakes hands with Minghao, introducing himself and saying it’s a pleasure. Hansol, he’s good with people like that. He’s a natural talker. No effigy needed.

“Well, anyway, Minghao, son, please come in,” their dad says. To him, all of their friends are his sons and daughters. Just like every person he meets on the street is their uncle or auntie. “We’re making fish for lunch. You eat fish, right?” He gestures for Minghao to step inside, Minghao takes his shoes off and follows Mingyu’s dad into the kitchen. “Lots of vegetarianism nowadays. It’s quite normal with young people, right? Mingyu, here, is also going through something, you know? Pescetarian. He doesn’t eat red meat anymore. You ever heard of pescetarianism, Minghao?”

“Dad,” Mingyu says. “He _knows_ what pescetarianism is.”

“How do you know that?” His dad shrugs. “I like to call this city-vegetarianism. Because, you know, people who live in big cities want to be all modern and good and eco-friendly, but then they eat fish and take their car to work everyday. You know? It’s kind of, say, ironic.” Minghao doesn’t seem to be following all the way through, supposedly since their dad has dropped the customer service voice and is now speaking as boisterously and incoherently he usually does, but he laughs and nods at this anyway. Perhaps for the sake of being polite. “Give me the shopping, Gyu, and show Minghao around. Play some cards. Entertain yourselves, all right? I’ll make the damn lunch.”

When Minghao and Mingyu leave the kitchen, Hansol is again sitting down on the sofa. There’s a pack of cards on the coffee table in front of him. “There’s nothing to show around. Let’s play Eights.”

“Fuck Eights,” says Mingyu. “Let’s just play Kings on the Corner.”

Hansol groans. “That shit’s  _boring_.”

Mingyu says, “It’s better than both Eights and Turning Tens.”

Hansol says, “Turning Tens is more fun.” 

Mingyu says, “How about we let the guest chose?”

They both turn to look at Minghao. 

Minghao says, “The only card games are–” pause– “I, um, I don’t know, I don’t know what it’s called in Greek but when you have the same cards you hit the table and then–” 

Hansol says, “Snap?”

Minghao says, “Yeah, Snap. And I know Poker.” 

Hansol says, “Poker?”

Mingyu says, “Poker?”

Minghao says, “Well, like, a no-money-needed version of it.”

Hansol says, “Poker it is.”

Mingyu says, “Yeah, the last time we played Snap, Hansol almost dislocated my knuckles.”

Let’s sidetrack a little. Unlike what Mingyu subconsciously may be making it out to seem now, he and his little brother do have a good relationship with one another. Despite the five year age difference between them, they get along as any other siblings do. They love each other, couldn’t live without each other, yet they would probably not admit so even if on their deathbeds. 

Mingyu and Hansol don’t have the same biological mother, so they’re not very similar appearance-wise (Hansol’s mother was a white American woman who is long gone out of the picture for reasons they’re not really sure of even today – she could perhaps be the reason for their dad’s radical anti-USA lifestyle. Mingyu’s mother, on the other hand, lives in mainland Greece and sends over money every month and a birthday postcard every once in a while) and don’t even legally have the same surnames (their dad never married either of the women he had children with, and they each took their mum’s maiden name) but since they were raised by the same, single dad, they are a lot more alike each other than they possibly want to admit. And, they’re much closer than they'd maybe even consider themselves to be.

Their dad loves retelling this story about Hansol and Mingyu as children. One Christmas, their father scraped together quite a lot of money, and Mingyu received a GameBoy Color with Pokémon Silver to go with. Mingyu, will-powered as he was, completed the game in less than a few, intense days of playing later. And then, since he had enjoyed it so much, he restarted the game, changed his starter pokémon, and replayed the whole thing again. In a different manner. He did this quite a lot of times for a whole year, but then decided to give the GameBoy and his sole game to Hansol next Christmas. They were ages twelve and seven at the time. Hansol was over the moon, and was so excited about it that he sat next to Mingyu and for the next few days, walked Mingyu through the entire game; explaining everything to his older brother as he went along. Obviously, Mingyu had already completed Pokémon Silver more than ten times at this point, but he saw that Hansol was so happy about explaining everything to him that he simply went along with it, acting as if he was a total beginner.

After Hansol completed the game, their dad had asked Mingyu, _“Should’ve_ you _have been the one to help_ him? _”_ Mingyu had said, according to the story, he can’t really remember it himself, _“Nah. I gave the game away because I thought it would be more fun to play it with him than on my own.”_

Mingyu isn’t really sure how much of the story is factual and how much is made up for it to be cuter than it really is. He, for one, can barely even remember being twelve years old as it sort of feels like this one, big acid trip consisting of him constantly repressing his true emotions. But, as Chan always says: never let truth get in the way of a good story. And it is a pretty good story to tell.

Lunch with his little brother and dad thinking his new friend? (acquaintance?) Minghao is his romantic partner isn’t _that_ bad, but it does feature a fair share awkward moments such as Minghao and Mingyu being asked, “So, how did you two meet exactly?” followed by the pair scrambling to think of a better answer than what happened in reality; Minghao being asked by Hansol, eyes shining, to teach him some swear words in Mandarin, receiving several, curt cut offs from both their dad and Mingyu; their dad, after learning that he isn’t fully fluent, speaking uncomfortably slowly and kindly when addressing Minghao in Greek (not meaning to do so in a derisive way, not at all; more a case of him genuinely wanting Minghao to understand everything being said).

Soon enough, when they’ve finished their meal and have been sitting around the living room table – chatting, playing fake-poker, drinking wine their dad pulled out from the back of the cabinet – for quite a lot longer than expected, Minghao says that he needs to get back home before it gets dark. He has errands to run, or like, that he’s going to meet up with his friend. Mingyu doesn’t question it.

They stand outside. Facing each other. Mingyu checks to see that the doors and windows are closed properly, then he says, “I think my dad thinks we’re like, you know.” He gestures between them. “Together. So, sorry about that.”

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Think of something else to say, Mingyu.

Minghao laughs at this. His _laugh._ Mingyu’s heard it a few times today, but it’s really something inexplicably nice to listen to. And his smile? Something inexplicably nice to look at. Everything is nice, and warm, and fuzzy, standing outside his house he’s leaving soon, staring at the man who’s probably leaving the island soon, too. “It’s fine. I realised when we were asked how we met. It’s a, a, uh, classic question.”

Mingyu’s mouth is sort of hanging open. He doesn’t care. Changing the subject: “Minghao, when do you leave Naxos?”

“Oh.” He scratches his head, looking surprised at the turn of the conversation. “Ages away. August. The end of August.” End of August? Mingyu, he's leaving at the start of August. Meaning that Minghao will be in Naxos for a longer period of time than him this summer. Isn't that funny?

“August?”

“Yeah.” 

“You’re staying that long?” He doesn’t mean this in a rude way. Does it sound rude? Shit. Shit.

(What Mingyu doesn’t know is that Minghao is thinking, _Well it’s not as if I had a big fuckin’ choice about it._ ) “Yup.”

“Well. That’s good.” 

“It’s good?”

“Yeah, it’s good. It means we can meet up again.” Mingyu quickly adds, “If you’d like to.”

“Sure.” There’s a change in Minghao’s eyes. Like, a small shift, like a small, small, almost unnoticeable glimmer appears. “It was nice meeting you. Um, for the second time. I guess.”

“It was nice meeting you, too.”

“Thanks for the fish.”

“You liked it?”

“An authentic, home cooked Greek meal. Of course I _liked_ it, Mingyu, the only thing I’ve been eating since arriving here is takeaway. Kebab, Thai.”

“You can come over for lunch again.”

“Spur on your family’s fantasies a little more.” Pause. “Fuck. That sounded wrong. I meant like, they thought that–”

Mingyu laughs. “I got you.”

“I’m bad at, you know, talking to people–”

“It’s okay.”

“–but I’d like to meet up again.” 

“Where exactly are you and your friend staying?”

“Some shitty motel. _Poseidon’s Palace._ ”

“Oh, yeah. _Poseidon’s Palace?_ That place really _is_ shitty.”

“We’re on a budget,” Minghao explains, shrugging. “And it’s central. Well. As ‘central’ as things get here.”

“Do you want me to walk back there with you?” Okay, maybe he’s grasping at straws so he can continue talking to Minghao. He has no idea why, since he now knows they can meet up for the remainder of the summer, but he just wants to talk to Minghao even if he thinks he’s bad at talking and truth Mingyu doesn’t consider himself a great speaker, either.

“You don’t have to. But, uh.” He speaks in short, sharp sentences. “That’d be nice, actually.”

“Well, then–” they start walking down the street, together, with non-synchronized footsteps and budding, fresh, hot feelings twisting their way into the air between them, finding their way inside of them, landing upon them in a flurry of emolliating warmth– “home, James, and don’t spare the horses.”

Discreet smile on his lips, Minghao looks to him. “Hm?”

“It’s just something you say.”

“Ah. I see.”

 

_July_

At the start of June, Minghao thought he was in for the worst, most boring summer of his entire life – trapped on an island in the middle of nowhere, trapped in an inn room with Soonyoung, trapped around humans, trapped in a language he wasn’t fluent in, trapped in a human’s body, flesh, skin, all day long until their drunk-watching shift started. A week into June, and he _still_  thought the exact same.

Then came Kim Mingyu, running down several flights of stairs, carrying a tote bag with packets of milk and a plastic bag with bottles of vodka (later on, Mingyu has thoroughly explained that the reason for him carrying said Smirnoff was not, in fact, that he was planning on drinking alone in his room, but instead because he was making the brutal mistake of being kind to his younger brother), and collided head first into his previously miserable time in Naxos, Greece.

Sound enough like an American romcom to you? Well, believe it or not, life can sometimes be _exactly_ like 500 fucking days of fucking summer.

And Minghao absolutely despises it.

Here’s the thing. At first, the thought of liking someone again was new, and exciting, and maybe to him it was even like a dream. It was nice. It was _nice,_ those days he was just meeting Mingyu for the first few times and, and, and, and he was blushing and because he hadn’t really fully gotten to know Mingyu yet and he was perhaps even developing a small, minor crush, imagining their dates, sometimes leaving more fish on the deck of their boat just for the fun of it, telling Soonyoung about this Mingyu, about him as person and his lovable but somewhat eccentric family and in return having Soonyoung take the piss and say, _“Minghao, you are so, so, whipped. Like.”_

In June, the two of them met up quite often, and when they did they explored the city – Mingyu showed him all of his favourite spots to sit and be on his own, along with his favourite cafés and his favourite bakery, Velonis, where they have many times since been to buy fresh bread and croissants – and talked on the phone and never once went swimming even though Mingyu suggested they go to the beach hundreds of times: _Minghao, it’s such good weather today! Let’s just go for a dip, c’mon!_ And he always, always pouted when Minghao said he wasn’t in the mood, or that it was going to rain later even though it never did, and any other excuse he could come up with. They went to some parties together, ones that Mingyu’s best friend Chan – a character, too, a real character – told them to come along to, but they always left early to go for walks or late night snacks from the supermarket instead, and Minghao would always have to leave ten at the absolute latest, sometimes more reluctantly than other times, to do his drunk-watching with Soonyoung.

Mingyu once, and only once, inquired about this. He said, “Minghao, you always have to leave to go somewhere, like around now.” He even pulled a really shitty joke, “If you don’t want to be with me, just tell me,” and smirked afterwards.

Minghao decided to simply say, “It’s not really a big deal. I just like going to bed early, so I can wake up early the next morning. Soonyoung goes to bed at like, nine, and I don’t want to wake him up by getting home too late.” Nonchalant shrug. It was funny, because he was making it out to seem as though his life was in complete order. “When you’re on holiday, you know, you just wanna, like, get out of bed to actually do shit. Instead of sleeping all day.”

The smirk on Mingyu’s face was long gone, and was now replaced by him nodding pensively. “That’s so,” he started. “Sensible.” After clearing his throat, he continued, “You know, if you want to, you can always stay over at my house instead of that godawful motel. Dad would kill me if he knew you were staying at that place every night.” 

Before he’d even finished the sentence, Minghao was already thinking about ways he could pretend to fall asleep at Mingyu’s house, then after confirming he was asleep, sneak outside and avoid all creaky floorboards and doors, subsequently completing his daily duty of saving drowning humans and then running back to his house to sleep for another few hours before Mingyu woke up. Or, he could just ask Soonyoung if he could do it alone that night and then make it up to him by working an extra shift, alone, a day later; letting Soonyoung meet up with the people _he’d_ been hanging out with in the city. 

“That sounds good,” Minghao said, acting as if he hadn’t just planned out a meticulous escape plan in seconds. This was still back in June, so the idea of staying the night at Mingyu’s house seemed like an exciting thing to do. Perhaps it even made his palms sweat a little, which would lead him to he’d think to himself that he’d maybe subconsciously started turning soft. “How about this weekend?” In the end, when Minghao did stay over at Mingyu’s, believe it or not, Soonyoung rather reluctantly agreed to work their shift alone but he crossed his arms and said that if anyone died they’d have to share the responsibility of it.

You’d think that a night like that – with just the two of them alone, wandering the streets all night because they decided they said they should fuck Minghao’s sensibility and just stay awake to then sleep in the next morning and maybe they even shared some alcohol between them – would be the moment that Minghao realised he was in love with Mingyu. You’d think they would be laying next to each other in bed (Mingyu’s dad sleeps on the sofa downstairs, and they only have two beds otherwise and Hansol was in the other one), that Minghao would’ve stayed away to stare at Mingyu’s resting face, and they would’ve been all curled up and his heart would’ve leaped more than usual, and he would’ve thought to himself, oh God, I am in _love._

The reality, though, is a lot more different than than that. When Minghao stayed over at his house, all he could think about was how uncomfortable it was to share a bed with their lengths and sizes, and additionally how close he constantly was to falling off and waking everyone up with a loud _thud._

Even though he didn’t know it then, it took him exactly one, sole month to fall in love with Mingyu.

 Now, he doesn’t know what the fuck to do about that.

“Well,” says Soonyoung. “Not to say that I was right, but.”

“Soonyoung, I don’t want to fucking hear it,” says Minghao. He knew that Soonyoung would do this, because he always does this, and Minghao is just not in the mood to be told that he was proven right because he knows he was proven right but the bigger issue is the fact that he was proven wrong about his mindset that human men are all worthless. “I just want, advice.” He has to pause before he says the word advice.

“Advice?” Soonyoung says.

“Advice,” Minghao repeats, crossing his arms.

“Advice?” Soonyoung says.

“If you’re gonna be a dick about it,” Minghao starts, but Soonyoung cuts him off immediately saying, “No, no, I’m not _purposefully_ being a dick, I’m just in a state of shock,” to which Minghao rolls his eyes and picks up his espresso, burning his tongue as he takes an impatient sip.

Soonyoung watches him wince, pick up his glass of water instead, lean back in his chair before he continues. “You’re not that good at asking for help, Hao. In fact.” Pause. “You’re shit at it.” 

The thing is that Minghao can’t deny what his best friend is saying. He _is_ shit at asking for help. When everything during their year in northern Italy unraveled, the day he learned his boyfriend of six months had been cheating on him for more than four of those, he hadn’t once told Soonyoung about what was happening or even simply asked for some raw, honest advice. He’d simply gone through everything himself, and then when he told Soonyoung they’d broken up Soonyoung, obviously, asked, “Why did you break up?” after he’d given Minghao those pitying eyes that he hates, and Minghao had shrugged and said, “That asshole cheated on me,” as casually as if he were saying, “I’m popping out to get some breakfast, you want a sandwich or something?” Minghao can admit he does build walls around himself, sometimes. It’s not something he’d proud of. He’s trying to fix it. He’s trying. So, here he is, seeking help from a person he trusts.

“Let me get this straight,” Soonyoung says, after he’s taken a large clunk of lemonade. “Even though you thought it wasn’t physically possible after being left in the ditch some time ago, you’ve fallen in love with Mingyu?” Minghao hesitates, then nods. “When did you find out? Did you just think about it and you were like, Yeah, that seems right, or was it an overnight thing, or did you just realise?” 

Minghao hesitates again.

“I’m just trying to understand,” Soonyoung says, putting on his soft voice. He has a soft voice. Believe it or not. He lets Soonyoung’s warmth envelop him. He trusts him. They trust each other. That’s nice. That’s nice. It’s a good thing. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s a funny story,” Minghao says, and he smiles.

It wasn’t a huge, important moment. It wasn’t revolutionary. It wasn’t sunsets, it wasn’t a kiss, it wasn’t a confession. It was just Mingyu being himself. They were talking a walk, just the two of them, talking about everything there was to talk about and more; when they came to the stairs leading down to the beach, and for some reason the steps that day were overcome with a tsunami of ants. Minghao continued walking, not even thinking about the ants, but Mingyu was avoiding stepping on even just a single one of them.

Minghao found this to be quite a queer thing to do – people don’t usually give a flying fuck about insects – and so he asked, “Why are you doing that?” Mingyu stopped, furrowing his eyebrows, and Minghao thought he would reply something fake, deep and fake-deep like, _“All life is precious,”_ because Mingyu, he sometimes does things like that as a joke, but instead came a grin and a much more Mingyu-esque reply. “Oh. I didn’t even realise I was doing it.” Laugh. “When me and Hansol were younger, he was obsessed with insects. I was like, nine. So, he was like, four. And even at four, five years old, he was pretty smart, and he loved insects so, so much. Children are actually a lot smarter than you think. Whenever we’d go somewhere with him, he would be careful to never walk on any insects. Even ants. And whenever we walked on ants or swatted away mosquitos, he would start crying and always tell us off. He continued with this up until he was like, eight. And it just stuck with me. I can’t kill flies or mosquitos and I can’t walk on ants even when Hansol’s not with me.”

After that, they walked down the stairs, being careful to not step on any of the ants. And that’s when Minghao thought to himself that he’d fallen in love.

Soonyoung listens to the story carefully. He takes another long sip of his lemonade and thinks for a few seconds and says, “I really love that story.” 

Bursting with things to say, Minghao exclaims, “But, Soons, I have no idea what to do with Mingyu and all these feelings and in a month, we’re out of here, and he’s out of here, and then it’ll just be a summer romance that’ll been thrown away and like, like, like–” running a stressed hand through his hair– “I’ll have to start all over again and.” He cuts himself off, groaning and leaning back in his chair. “I have no idea what to do. And, don’t tell me that I have to tell him, because I know and I want to but I have no idea _how._ ”

“Minghao,” says Soonyoung, grinning. Not in a mocking way. “Breathe.” 

“I’m breathing.” 

“Look, I have no idea what to tell you.” 

“You don’t? You always have something to say.” 

“I think you’re just going to have to figure it out yourself.”

“Huh?”

“Yup.” 

“Soonyoung, I never ask you for advice. I’m asking you for advice. Now.”

“And I’m telling you, this is my advice. the best thing for you is to figure this out by yourself.”

“That’s pretty shitty advice.”

“All I’m saying is, the longer you wait, the more it will hurt to let go. Like a rubber band. You hold it, and the more you stretch, the more it’ll hurt for the person receiving it to their face. Do you get me?”

“Well, that was fucking philosophic of you.”

“I know. I saw it on _Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging_.”

“You’re such a tosser.” “I know.” “But, thank you.” “Minghao?” “Yeah?” “I’m happy for you.” “Huh?” “I’m happy for you.” “Huh?” “You deserve happiness. And you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever told you this properly, but everything that happened with Emilio, it wasn’t your fault. I’m being serious. I know I was a dickhead about the situation, and I joke about Emilio sometimes, and I made fun of the boycott, but now I’m serious.” He’s being serious. Soonyoung isn’t often serious and he doesn’t often use his soft voice and he isn’t often philosophic but when he is he _is_ Minghao can always tell when he’s being one hundred percent serious even if he as he said often plays things off as jokes. Soonyoung continues, “It wasn’t your fault,” and all Minghao can manage is a weak, “I know,” as a reply. “Minghao, it wasn’t your fault.” Pause. Minghao says, “I’m still trying to understand it. I’m still trying to understand what’s happening now, and what happened then.” “You don’t have to understand. Just know, that nothing that happened was ever your fault.” Minghao gulps and says, “Thank you, Soonyoung.” “I love you,” says Soonyoung, and reaches over and touches Minghao’s hand in a warm gesture of reassurance, “You can always ask me for help. Or, anything. I know we don’t always talk about things like this, but you know I’d bury a fucking body for you.”

 

 

 

There’s one remotely famous landmark in Naxos. The Portara. The Apollo Temple. It’s the first thing you see of Naxos when disembarking the boat, and it’s located on top of a small, rocky island connected to the town by a water bridge, an artificial pathway. A short walk from the harbour. The Portara is known to be especially beautiful to visit during a sunrise or a sunset, when the rays break through the invisible threshold of the huge, marble gate, and the colours of the sky reflect upon the water, and if you turn around you can see the whitewashed city of Naxos. Thus, the experience is often described as channeling a certain energy of stillness, tranquility, peace, peace, peace. 

The very evening that Soonyoung tells him to believe in letting himself be loved and to love, Minghao and Mingyu visit the Portara together. It’s not the first time they go there. They’ve been a few times – sometimes to simply eat at the Apollo Café right next to the main tourist attraction. Today doesn’t feel as though it’s different from the rest of the times. But Minghao knows it is. And so, what he doesn’t do when the two of them sit down next to each other, feeling the rocky ground firm against their asses, is confess his love to Mingyu. He knows, somewhere inside of him, that now is not the right time.

What he instead decides to do is tell Mingyu about Emilio, and that living hell that unfolded two summers ago.

Mingyu’s reactions don’t really surprise him. They’re the same reactions as everyone has. When Minghao tells him about Emilio pressuring him to come out to his parents, every red flag of their relationship he chose to ignore, Emilio cheating on him with their mutual best friend during the space of a few months, and the thing was that they were only 18, and Minghao really, really fucking _liked_ him, and he’d been heartbroken, and the two people he trusted the most during his exchange year in Italy let him down, and then Emilio outed him to his parents, and as the story goes on Mingyu’s face goes from shocked, to sad, to angry, to shocked, to angry.

“What a fucking,” Mingyu starts, but then the words trail off his tongue and Minghao can almost feel his body trembling. “What a fucking. Fucking.”

Minghao is sitting with legs pulled up, chin rested against his knees. and Mingyu has his legs stretched out, kicking gravel away with this heels, twitching all over. Minghao can feel his legs turn into sparkling water merely from sitting in the same position – almost too vulnerable for his liking – for so long.

“I know,” Minghao says. He picks up a rock, throwing it into the sea. Not in an aggressive way. Just absentmindedly. “Fucking asshole.”

Mingyu is quiet.

“But, I’m better now,” says Minghao. He picks up another small stone. Hurls it away. _Splash._ “For a while, I thought I’d never get over it. I lost my good, polite relationship with my parents, and then everything just crumbled. I had to leave Bergamo for Seoul. I had to start everything all over again. And then, I went on a male boycott. Like, I didn’t trust any guys apart from Soonyoung.” What he doesn’t say is this: _Until you, Mingyu. I’ve known you for a month, and I could smother you in kisses, and I’m not sure if we’re on the same wavelength about this but IthinkI’vefalleninlovewithyouorsomethinglikethat._  

“Male boycott,” says Mingyu.

“Yup.” Minghao realises that he’s trying to skip rocks. He’s been subconsciously picking out the more flatter ones next to and underneath him; skipping stones is something he and Soonyoung have been doing a lot this summer. Especially during their drunk watching shifts. And they’re both terrible at it. “Fuck men.” 

“I would be offended,” says Mingyu, and Minghao realises he’s joined the search for flat stones. One second ago, they were discussing Minghao’s life crumbling to pieces, and now they’re skipping stones. Maybe he likes that Mingyu isn’t making a huge deal out of Minghao pouring his heart out. “But I agree. Fuck men. Like–” _skid, skid, skid, skid, skid, skid, skid–_  “fuck them, and not in the good sense.” 

Minghao completely ignores his shitty joke, his subtle blush and the evening glow rested atop his face, to stare at the stone he just skipped. Seven whole skids, _then_ dropping into the water. “How did you _do_ that?” he exclaims, not attempting to hide even a modicum of his awe.

“Huh?” Mingyu says, smiling. “Skipped a rock?”

Minghao nods. “That was seven skids.”

“Seven skims on the water is cool?” Mingyu laughs, then knocks Minghao gently to the side, making him slightly lose his balance. “You’re such a city kid. I literally grew up surrounded by water, water, and more water. Hello?” Laugh. Laugh. His teeth peek out from the corner of his mouth. “I’ve had 18 years of practice.”

“What’s your record?” 

“Like, sixteen, seventeen.”

“You’re kidding.” 

“Nope.”

Mingyu’s smiling his ass off. God, Minghao is _smitten._

“Seventeen skids?”

“Seventeen skids.”

Minghao says, “I’ve been practising all summer, and I can’t even do three.”

Mingyu grins and says, “Let me help you,” and Emilio, along with everything else, is completely forgotten as Mingyu rests his hand on Minghao’s and tells him how the technique lies in your wrist and that the shape the stone isn’t close to near as important as the flick you make.

Mingyu, sitting next to Xu Minghao, in that exact moment is thinking the exact same thing. He’s forgotten about Minghao spilling his guts out about his ex, and everything else they talked about that evening, and only focusing all his attention on helping Minghao skid a stone more than three times. It’s quite an experience. To him, and everyone else who lives and grew up on an island, skidding rocks comes as naturally as taking the tube in the morning for those who grew up in the city. (Mingyu has only been on a subway once. He’d hated every single second of it.)

The truth is this. A while ago, Mingyu realised he may have feelings for Minghao. But in moments like this, he realises he may really have feelings for Minghao. Feelings– _feelings_. Which sort of scares the living fuck out of him. 

His stupid, good-for-nothing brain keeps imagining what this scenario would’ve been like if the two of them were officially a couple. Like, it replays over and over and over again in his head. It would be the same, but they’d be closer, and their thighs would be pressing against each other, perhaps, and maybe they’d even be holding hands; thinking about this sends Mingyu into a flushing mess, and after 15 minutes and at least 20 rocks gone Minghao manages three skids and he turns to Mingyu, proud and grinning widely, and that sends him into even more of a flushing messmess _mess._

After a while of this, the sun has already set, and Minghao has managed four skids and decided he’s satisfied with that alone. Mingyu decides to change the conversation back to a more serious one, and starts by saying, “Minghao, I’ve been thinking.” They’re walking their way back to _Poseidon’s Palace_  together, and Minghao turns to him, questioning expression. “You know I told you that I’ve been waiting to tell Hansol that I’m going to Athens in August?” He pauses. “I think today’s the right time.”

Minghao nods. “Okay.”

Mingyu says, “Aren’t you going to ask why I think it’s the right time?”

Shrug. “I don’t know. If you know, you know. But, I can ask if you want me to.”

“Ask.”

“Okay. Why do you think it’s the right time?”

“Because,” says Mingyu. “You and Soonyoung’s somewhat insane but logical superstition that everything divisible by three is good luck, it’s kind of rubbing off on me.”

This really makes Minghao smile. A small, discreet, happy smile.

“And today is the 21st,” Mingyu says.

“Yup.”

“So, today _better_ be fucking lucky.”

“It will be.”

“How do you know?”

“The threes never lie,” says Minghao. He’s making it so hard to not fall head-over-heels for him.

Later that night, they’re sitting at the dinner table, and Hansol and their father are arguing. It starts with this: “Why do you treat Mingyu differently from me?” to which their dad replies, jokingly, “Sol, when you say things like that, no one likes you,” to which Hansol whignes, “Stop making jokes, I’m serious.” “You and Mingyu are two completely different people. Okay?” “You don’t get angry at him like you do with me.”

Mingyu decides that it’s his turn to join this conversation based heavily on him. “He doesn’t get angry at me because _I_  actually do the things he wants me to do.” He says while grabbing himself from salad from their ceramic salad bowl. 

Their dad says, “Yes, yes. He’s right.” 

This irritates Hansol even more, and he asks, “Well, who’s your favourite son?” 

“Stop being silly, Hansol, you’ll make an old man like me go insane." “I’m being serious.” “You are both my favourites.” Hansol harrumphs, and their dad says, “Where’s this coming from?” Hansol is quiet. “Huh, Sol?” “I’m dropping the subject, now.” “You’re being impossible.” “I’ve dropped it.” “One second, demanding answers, the next, acting like a small toddler.” “I’ve dropped it.” 

Obviously, this annoyance on Hansol’s part of the table isn’t coming out of nowhere. Maybe their dad has been digging into Hansol a lot this summer. First for stealing his cigarettes - Mingyu didn’t have anything to do with him finding out about this, actually; Hansol had been caught in the act while smuggling a few fags into his jeans pockets - and not helping out on the boat. Which Mingyu deems to be fair enough. But, then, he starts digging into Hansol for smaller things like sleeping in and leaving a spoon in the sink. 

Mingyu has a theory about this. He thinks that his dad is kind of panicking right now – the case is perhaps that he’s finally realising he’s going to be alone with Hansol from this autumn and on, and that someday Hansol is going to leave, too, and Mingyu thinks that maybe he has no idea what to do about that.

That’s why, even though Hansol is already mad at Mingyu for the supposed biasedness of their father, he decides the time is still right to tell him. And explain the empty nest syndrome their dad may face in the future.

The anxiety of this moment has been lying deep within him all summer, so despite Mingyu wanting to chicken out completely – especially after a dinner with Hansol sitting there, quiet, irate, eating his potatoes slowly, somewhat miserably – he also just wants to get it over and done with. And, so he can give Hansol at least two weeks to prepare for his leaving. Two weeks. It’s probably not enough. It’s definitely not enough. Fuck. He has no idea what do if Hansol starts ignoring him. Fuck. He really shouldn’t have left this. So. Last. Minute.

“Want to go for a walk, Sollie?” he asks, after gently knocking on the wall next to his bed to grab his attention; he’s pointedly turned away from Mingyu, lying on his stomach and staring into nothing.

“Don’t call me Sollie,” he grumbles. He turns to face Mingyu, nonetheless. “What do you want, Mingyu?”

“I don’t want anything,” says Mingyu, almost, almost smiling at his brother’s stubbornness. He can be just like their dad, sometimes. He doesn’t even realise it himself. It would’ve been hilarious if he wasn’t nervously, and hopefully only mentally pissing himself right now. “Just to take a walk, have a chat with you. We haven’t had much time together, alone, I feel. Right?”

“‘Cause you’ve been galavanting into the sunset with your boyfriend everyday,” Hansol snaps.

“You’ve also busy, I hear,” says Mingyu. He leans against the wall next to the end of Hansol’s bed. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

This takes Hansol aback. “Huh?”

“You heard me.” 

“Who told you?” Hansold demands. He now sits up in bed, chucking his pillow to the side and placing his feet to the ground. He glares at Mingyu, but there’s a hint of an embarrassed blush on his face. “Chan? Does Chan know? I’ll kill him.”

“No one told me anything,” Mingyu replies, grinning. “But you’ve just confirmed it.”

He turns around and starts making his way to the stairs.

“What?” he hears Hansol exclaim. “Mingyu, you’re such a tosser. Come _back_.” Mingyu walks down the stairs, and he can’t believe how easy it is to trick his younger brother like this. “Come back, Gyu. You’re the worst person ever! I swear.”

“I’m going out now,” Mingyu calls out. From his dad, he receives a short reply from the kitchen. Okay! have a nice time!, or something. He’s not really focused on that.

“Where are you going?” Hansol says, now making his way out of bed and jogging down the stairs.

Mingyu says, “For a walk. You coming or not?” 

Rather sulkily, Hansol says, “I’m coming. Okay? I’m coming.” 

Their dad says, “Can you two buy some chewing gum for me? Sweet mint, not peppermint or any of that spearmint bullshit. Two packets, Gyu, or it’ll run out by tomorrow. Alright?”

As they walk together, side by side, to the supermarket, Mingyu can’t help but think about how it’s very similar to the evening he first, without even knowing it then, met Minghao. Like, he gets hit by some serious _déjà vu_. On the way there, they discuss Hansol’s love life – or lack thereof, according to him; he and the girl-he-won’t-name don’t really want to ‘put a label’ on whatever it is they are – and Mingyu cracks some bad jokes, and Hansol reciprocates these jokes about him and Minghao. It’s very relaxed, and Hansol’s bad mood seems to have somewhat been emolliated. But, with Hansol, you never really know.

Mingyu ends up buying three packets of sweet mint chewing gum. You know. For good luck.

On the way home is a different story. Mingyu, he feels so anxious that he could throw up. He could. And that doesn’t happen very often. He often feels nervous, and he often feels his hands shake, his legs jiggle from jitteriness. He often feels his words getting all mixed up. But this? It’s on a whole new level. And he can almost feel himself go too dizzy to stand properly as he says the words, “Sol, can we just sit down for a while? I want to talk to you about something.”

Hansol shrugs, and the two of them sit down on a bench, overlooking the water. Mingyu thought seeing theseaandthestarsandthemoonandallofthat would comfort him. Nothing comforts him. God, he could faint. He honestly could. After a few seconds of silence, he decides that it can’t wait any longer. “Hansol,” he says. It’s hard to even say just that. He can’t look into his brother’s eyes. He can’t. “I have to tell you something.”

He can hear Hansol fake a gasp. “You’re gay?” 

His mind can barely even register this as a joke. Like, everything is going way too slowly. So, when he forces himself to laugh and tell Hansol to be serious, it comes out like this: “ _Ha,  h a, Slol, be serio s_.”

Hansol frowns. “Huh?”

Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath. “ _Be serious_.” Saying those two, simple words probably takes a second or so out loud. In his mind, it feels like he needs five minutes for them to come out properly. 

“Are you high?” 

“Hansol,” Mingyu says. “I’m going to university in Athens. Med school.”

There comes a pause. A pause which is either ten minutes long, a year long, or two decades long. Or just a pause less than 30 seconds long, but Mingyu has no idea since he can’tcan’tcan’t look at Hansol’s reaction, or even Hansol’s face, and he hardly even trusts himself to look anywhere else than right in front of him and Hansol eventually breaks the pause by slicing his tongue into the air, cutting Mingyu open, his next words dripping with hurt. “You’re going,” Hansol repeats. “To Athens?”

Mingyu feels his heart being forcibly ripped out of his chest. Hansol’s voice stays seemingly perfectly stable, but there’s a slight wobble, a slight underlying tone which only a big brother would notice; one which makes said big brother almost start cold sweating in guilt, because it’s only just now sinking in that he’s leaving, too, and he’s leaving his home, his comfort, his somewhat eccentric dad, his non blood-related uncles and aunties, the _Calla Lily_ he hates and loves at the same time _,_ his Chan, and his Hansol; his Hansol who never steps on ants, who’s never killed a fly in his entire life, who is impossibly good at card games, who used to be able to recite every Smosh song ever made, who watches Ratatouille when he’s sad, who is often so stubborn it can be infuriating, who is awful at telling lies, who is now grown up enough to have a semblance to a girlfriend, who Mingyu held in his arms when he was a baby and – as the story his dad always tells goes – touched Hansol’s fingers and said in an extremely concerned voice, _"_ _He is much smaller than I am, Daddy, is that normal?"_

Hansol continues, “Since when are you going to Athens?”

“I’ve,” Mingyu can barely muster up a single sentence, “known since May, I just haven’t known when to tell you.” 

“Oh,” Hansol replies, twisting the inside of Mingyu’s stomach even harder. 

“Hansol,” says Mingyu. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hansol says, and the wobble in his lip, the uncertainty in his words is now heard even clearer. As clear as day, in fact. Which kills him. It eats him up inside. It does. It does. “Mingyu, why didn’t you tell me until now? When are you leaving?”

Mingyu winces. “Tenth of August.”

“The tenth of August.” Hansol repeats, visibly slumped. “You had the whole summer to tell me, and you’re telling me this now?”

And Mingyu has no idea what to reply to that.

“That’s sort of cruel, Mingyu,” Hansol says. He doesn’t even sound angry.

“Sol, I’m sorry,” Mingyu says, mouth dry, heart split open.

“Did Chan know?” Hansol asks. “And Dad?” 

Mingyu remains silent. 

“So, they knew,” Hansol says.

What hurts him the most is that this is nowhere near what Mingyu had expected Hansol’s reaction to be. He’d anticipated Hansol to be thrown into a fit of rage, a total, neverending conniption; that he’d give Mingyu a Lady Bird-esque silent treatment and would completely refuse to listen to Mingyu try to explain himself again and again and again. That’s what he’d been dreading since May. Hansol, his own brother, his best friend, turning on him.

Hansol sighs after another despairingly long, insufferable silence. “Mingyu, I have to tell you something, too.” He picks at his nails, and Mingyu can’t read his expression anymore. It’s completely, completely inscrutable. It’s quite unusual, for Hansol to be such a mystery. He usually wears his heart on his sleeve, so to speak. Now? Completely different turn of events. “I’ve known for quite some time now. You know, about you leaving Naxos.” Pause. “I happened to hear you and Dad talking about Athens one morning, when you thought I was asleep upstairs, and since then I’ve known. That was in May. Maybe a day or so after you’d found out your results.” Pause. Mingyu’s mouth falls open.

Hansol continues, “This whole summer, I’ve been waiting for you to tell me. Because I’ve known. And it’s been pretty fucking hard. I thought you’d tell me in May, and then I thought you’d tell me in June because you had _so_ many chances, and then I thought you’d at least have to tell me at like, the start of July. But now July is ending. And you’re leaving in two weeks or something. And you’re telling me _now._ ” Now, he looks disappointed. “I don’t know. I guess you’ve been busy. So have I. And I’ve just been telling myself, He’s just waiting for the right time!, and, He’s just nervous!, and all of that, and that’s most likely true, I get it, but I just think you could’ve said something. Anything. Then I could’ve prepared myself for your departure this whole summer. But now, I was just preparing myself to react to some news I already _knew_. Which saddened me. Made me fight Dad to distract myself. Made it harder to be around you.” 

He meets Mingyu’s eyes. “What I’m getting to is that. I just think. You could’ve told me.”

“I wanted to,” Mingyu says, and now he’s suddenly bursting with words to speak and apologises to give. “Sol, I _wanted_ to. So many times–” sigh– “but, as you said, I didn’t think any time was right. What does that even mean? And, you’re right, I was only thinking about myself. How anxious _I_ was about it. I didn’t even notice that you’ve known this whole time. God.” He shakes his head. The situation makes more sense, now. How Hansol hadn’t gotten mad. How he’d just fiddles with his thumbs and hidden his face. “God. I’ve been an idiot, Sol. I’ve been such a fucking idiot. I should’ve told you. You’re right. I should’ve told you the moment I knew.”

“You should’ve,” says Hansol.

“I should’ve,” says Mingyu. “I wanted to. I wanted to share my happiness with you. But, some part of me thought you’d be angry at me for wanting to leave you and Dad, and that’d ignore me, that you’d guilt me out of it or something, but I don’t want to leave you at all it’s just that–” 

Hansol cuts him off. “Why would I _ever_ do that?” 

Mingyu starts, “I just thought, I just thought that, that, you would’ve been foaming-at-the-mouth  _livid–”_

“I _wouldn’t_ have been,” says Hansol, cutting him off once again. “I would’ve been so, so happy.” He looks at Mingyu, and he finally, for the first time today, cracks a smile. “And, I am happy for you. Even though you not telling me made me sad, I kept thinking how proud I am of you. I kept thinking, Woah, that’s my brother who’s going to become a doctor. I kept thinking about how fucking _awesome_  that was. Okay? I would never be mad.”

At long last, this turns out to be what breaks Mingyu; the moment Hansol smiles tears start shaping their way into his eyes and when he says how proud he is of Mingyu despite the fact that Mingyu was an asshole to him all summer, he starts full on bawling. “Hansol,” he says, crying until possibly his lungs go out, trying to wipe away his tears with his shirt, no luck at all, and crying some more, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I should’ve. I’m such an asshole. I am, I am, I am.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” says Hansol, now also on the verge of tears. “I can understand how hard it must’ve been to get the courage to tell me.” 

“It’s not an excuse,” Mingyu says. “It’s not an excuse.” 

“It may not be an excuse, but it makes me understand you.”

“I don’t deserve you, Sol.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not true.” 

“You’re being way too mature, right now.” Was this the same guy who laughed at cat food brand _Pussi_  a few weeks ago? Was it really? “Be angry at me instead. Come on. You can say fuck you to me! Fuck you, Mingyu!”

This makes Hansol grin, even though Mingyu notices his face is somewhat damp, too. Mingyu? His face is in ruins. He’s snotty, wet, red eyed. Everything. “I’m not angry at you. And I never was _angry_ at you. I just couldn’t be even if I tried. But–” twiddling thumbs again– “fuck you, anyway. Fuck you for leaving me here. I’m going to miss you, so much, Gyu. So. So. Yeah. Fuck you, for that.”

Mingyu, he just starts bawling all over again. “ _Hansol,_ ” he cries, hugging his brother towards him. Hugging him closer. Hugging him closer, closer, closer. This is what he needed. A hug from Hansol. That’s what he should’ve done when he found out about getting into med school in Athens. He should’ve celebrated, he should’ve run upstairs to tell Hansol, he should’ve hugged the shit out of him all summer. “I’m going to miss you so, _so_ much.” _I’mgoingtomissyousomuchandIloveyouandI’msorryandIloveyoumorethaneverythingI’mgoingtomissyousomuchandIloveyouandI’msorryandIloveyoumorethaneverythingI’mgoingtomissyousomuchandIloveyouandI’msorryandIloveyoumorethaneverything._

For a while, they stay like that – both too emotional to speak properly; both running out of things to say – until finally Hansol breaks the embrace apart, smiling gently. He says, “You know what I really want to do before you leave?”

“What?” Mingyu asks.

“It’s, um,” Hansol starts. “Sort of cliché. Like.”

“Who fucking cares,” Mingyu says.

“You’re right.” Hansol grins. “Who fucking cares? Well, I, um, really want to go out on the  _Calla Lily_ with you and Dad. You know. Um, the three of us. We haven’t done it in so long. Like, forever.”

“Oh, Hansol,” Mingyu says.

Hansol shrugs. “I don’t know why I haven’t asked to do it before.” 

Mingyu says, "Well, let’s do it. Let’s go on a boat adventure, tomorrow. The three of us.” 

“Really?”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not?”

Mingyu says, “I’ve wanted to do it for some time. I just didn’t think _you_ would want to.”

Hansol says, “I do.”

Mingyu is unashamedly bursting with love. “Well, then. It’s settled.”

So, that’s why, the following morning, the three of them end up going on an impromptu boat adventure. No dungarees or boots involved. No fishing. Just a small, family trip. Mingyu allows himself to laugh, breathe in the sharp and salty air of the Aegean Sea, feel the blaring sun against his cheeks. He allows himself to talk to his father and brother about his feelings for Minghao, he allows himself to listen to their advice. He touches the clear, blue water. He gets pushed into the water by Hansol. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and splashes water up onto the boat, pulling Hansol down with him, and their dad shakes his head and says they’re being stupid, childish, but he’s cracking up, too, and Mingyu allows himself to believe that nothing in his life will ever be more important than a moment like this, with his family, laughing together like this. Coming to terms with that? It’s peaceful. Nothing other than peaceful.

 

 

 

 

 

_August_

Minghao confessing to Mingyu isn’t at all as dramatic as he thought it needed to be. 

It’s more like this: the two of them, sitting together on Mingyu’s living room floor, at the start of August, eating _Baci_ chocolates. Minghao saying that every chocolate has a quote in Italian inside of the wrapper, which is what makes eating them so charmful. Mingyu reading his quote out loud. Minghao reading his quote out loud. Mingyu’s quote being _La vita non_ _è_ _nulla senza l’amicizia_ (life is nothing without friends) and Minghao’s being _Tutti i tuoi baci per me saranno sempre pochi_ (all your kisses would still be too few).

Minghao says something along the lines of, “Mingyu, I think this quote, kind of, like, matches in on what I feel for you,” and Mingyu says something along the lines of, “You mean,” and Minghao says something along the lines of, “Yeah,” and Mingyu definitely says – Minghao doesn’t remember everything very well because it’s sort of a blur in his mind but this he does remember, crystal clear, word-for-fucking-word – “Does that mean I can kiss you?” and Minghao nods and then they kiss, even though they’re sitting on the floor, and Minghao does now know, scientifically, that every single kiss from Mingyu would be too little.

He reckons he could have a hundred kisses and still want a thousand more; that he could be with Mingyu for a thousand seconds and still want to be with him for a million more; that he could look at Mingyu for a million seconds and still want to look at him a billion more.

“What are you thinking right now?” Mingyu asks, as they’re lying on hard ground which suddenly feels like a cloud in Heaven, or anything else you can think of that is as impossibly soft and caring and right.

Minghao says _Fuck you!_ to hiding his thoughts and feelings. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you! He says, “I’m thinking about kissing you again.”

Mingyu grins. “You can kiss me again.”

And so, because they can, they kiss again. 

Mingyu turns to his side. Minghao turns to his side. Mingyu tucks Minghao’s hair behind his ear. He still hasn’t gotten it cut shorter, since he decided he quite likes the way it feels against his shoulders. And, yeah, because Mingyu said it made him look cool. “I’ve wasted quite some time not kissing you this summer. All those times I was _so_ close. But didn’t say anything. Or, you know, do anything.”

Minghao sighs. “I feel the same way.”

Mingyu says. “Know what I’m thinking about now?”

“No. Tell me.” 

“It’s the third of August.”

Minghao laughs. “You’re fucking with me.”

“It _is_.”

“I’ve turned you into somewhat of a conspiracist, Kim Mingyu.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Being a merperson does have it perks, it turns out, even though it can be a pain in the ass when it comes to hiding it from humans along with boring duties you have to do and all of that other shit. But, with being a merperson comes drunk watching – which Minghao thought would deliver the most miserable weeks of his 20 year old life, and subsequently turned out to do the completely opposite – and also the ability to quickly and smoothly catch some fish and put them on the cute fisherman son’s boat. Minghao, he doesn’t plan on telling Mingyu about his merfolkism quite yet. And not about the fact that he was actually the one who placed the fish in that bucket on the deck that one, fated morning in June.

For now, he doesn’t want to even _think_ about having to reveal the huge secret about his entire existence as a non-human-being. All he wants to do is lie next to Mingyu, as physically close as he can, to make up for the times he could’ve but didn’t this summer. To make up for as much as he can before the two of them temporarily part ways. Temporarily. He says temporarily, because that’s what he really hopes the time they’re apart will be. When did he start saying shit like that? Fuck. It’s not a bad thing, though, he thinks.

As if Mingyu can read his mind, he says, “Hao, I’m serious when I say that I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure we can meet up again. I mean, you’re not just some summer fling to me. You’re not.”

“I’m serious about this, too,” Minghao says, almost whispering. “As serious as lung cancer.” He definitely knows he got that saying wrong. He definitely knows he doesn’t care.

“Good,” Mingyu says, still smiling. “Then I promise that the first thing I’ll do from my dorm in Athens is send the address to you. I’ll be expecting letters.”

“Or we can text,” Minghao jokes, knowing that he’ll probably end up spending way too much on stamps, to send letters every week.

“Letters are more fun,” Mingyu says. 

“They are,” Minghao replies.

And Mingyu isn’t the type of person to go back on his promises. The first thing he does upon arriving to his university dorm is find out what the address is and send it over to Minghao’s number. 

And the first thing Minghao does upon receiving the text with Mingyu’s new address is post a letter with 1) a small note, and 2) an even smaller piece of paper enclosed inside of it. The note reads: _I miss you._ He doesn’t even feel the need to sign his name. He’s mysterious like that, and whatnot. The smaller piece of paper inside? It’s a quote he picked out from the wrapper of one of the Baci chocolates he’d eaten recently. _L’amore nasce dall’ assenza._ Absence makes thy heart grow fonder.

 

 

 

A few days later, Minghao receives a letter. Inside the letter is a single, small note, with a few sentences written messily on lined paper. 

 

 

 

_Propertius, huh? Seems like a smart guy. I googled it, and it seems like a lot of other people apart from him have said that exact same thing. So, it’s either a case of fake news on behalf of Baci, or just a popular philosophy about love and life. Or something. Wondering why I googled it? I don’t know. I just really liked the quote._

_Oh, and I miss you, too. I guess._

_Love,_

_Mingyu_

 

 

 

(Soonyoung, from the other side of Room 35, watches his best friend sit at the desk and read the letter over and over again, grinning to himself. He speaks up with a, “You have me to thank for that, you know,” and Minghao doesn’t stop smiling even as he picks his pen up and chucks it at Soonyoung.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> tell your siblings and best friends that you love them whenever you can!
> 
>  
> 
> [send me hate on twitter](https://twitter.com/greeneryrains)


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